


i'm killing time, and time's killing you

by KaavyaWriting



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bilbo really doesn't know wtf he's doing, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Language, Fluff, Ghost Bilbo, M/M, Mentions of Mental Illness, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, accidental pining, accidental platonic voyeurism, accidental sexual voyeurism, and Thorin spends his time reading, and for that matter so is bilbo, being domestic, complaining in Thorin's general direction, except for the part where he's probably not a ghost, faux character death, it's all Gandalf's fault, making coffee, meanwhile thorin is a bean, mentions of depression, mostly hanging out, no really he's obsessed with Bilbo's books, the characters have gone all melancholy but, vaguely intentional voyeurism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-09
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-02-12 07:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 40,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2100282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaavyaWriting/pseuds/KaavyaWriting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bilbo was haunting Thorin… politely. Most of the time. If he happened to see things he shouldn't, that wasn't really his fault, was it? It wasn't like he could just tell Thorin he's there—haunting didn't work that way. But he tried to be helpful; he was more of a considerate, if inconspicuous flatmate than anything else. He made coffee in the mornings, didn't he? And put up those stupid, useless free floating shelves Thorin liked better than Bilbo's antique bookcases. Once he even finished Thorin's taxes, because God was the man useless at it.</p><p>But that was a tangent. The thing of the matter was, Bilbo was haunting Thorin, politely for the most part. Even though, technically speaking, Bilbo was not dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Not betaed, so readers beware, thar be ~~dragons~~ typos here.

  
[ ](http://s1187.photobucket.com/user/kaavyawriting/media/Northerntrash%20Recced%20Im%20Killing%20Time.jpg.html)

_By[northerntrash](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/118436307967/nts-fic-recs-12-im-killing-time-and-times)_

~*~

Bilbo was not haunting Thorin Durinson.

No, really. He wasn't.

Just because he happened to be … ah, sharing the space where Thorin Durinson happened to live, and Bilbo happened to be … intangible, as it were…. Well. There wasn't much he could do about that, now was there?

He was really a sort of flat mate, if it was considered from all angles. Admittedly, Thorin didn't know Bilbo was living there and Bilbo didn't, technically, pay rent, but in Bilbo's defense he was _intangible_ , which put a bit of a damper on having a job or earning money or talking to flat mates, among other things. So Bilbo cut himself a little slack in that department.

And yes, it was perhaps a touch rude to live with someone without telling that someone you were living with them, but if Bilbo could do that much, he bloody well would have told someone he wasn't dead and needed help by now. It wasn't his fault the corporeal couldn't see him!

Even if it did work at Bilbo's nerves that he was living with someone who didn't know he was there. When one is around people who don't know one's there, said people tend to do and say things they otherwise wouldn't, and there were some things Thorin Durinson said (and did) he probably wanted to remain private.

Like the whole debacle with Bilbo's bedroom. Or how Thorin insulted every single thing Bilbo owned. Or the way in which Thorin kept walking around half naked.

But whose fault was that, anyway? _Thorin's_ , that's whose. Bilbo was here first. He didn't ask Thorin to move in. Nor did Thorin think to ask if anyone was haunting the place before he signed the lease.

Not that Bilbo was haunting anything. He _wasn't dead_. Only the dead haunted things.

Besides, this had been Bilbo's apartment first. It was not the littlest bit his fault that Lobelia, onerous cousin that she was, had had Bilbo declared dead and taken over ownership of the Shire, the apartment building his father had bought and renovated when he'd married Bilbo's mother.

Technically, ownership of the building was in Otho's name, as Otho was his closest blood relative and Bilbo had been idiot enough not to leave a will—who expects to die at thirty-three?—but that hardly stopped Lobelia. They were married after all, and Bilbo knew very well who ran that marriage, and thus his building.

But Bilbo wasn't dead, not really. They'd never found a body, and there was a _reason_ for that. When Bilbo managed to become tangible again he would be having words with whatever government agency decided declaring him dead without a body was an acceptable thing to do.

But Thorin Durinson… Admittedly, Bilbo could have moved out, so to speak. Simply gone somewhere else. He wasn't tied to his apartment the way ghosts supposedly were—not that Bilbo's ever met a ghost. But in all honesty he didn't know where he could go. No one could see him, so who could he go to for help? And that dratted man, Gandalf, had disappeared long before Bilbo figured out he'd somehow made Bilbo… incorporeal? Ghostlike? Not-dead-but-looking-it?

Gandalf had been over for tea, on the thinnest pretense of having been a friend of Bilbo's mother, and was spouting nonsense stories about magic. Bilbo became a little, er, rude. Just a tad. Next thing he knew, Gandalf's eyes were twinkling with amusement even as he berated Bilbo for being a lazeabout bore, a shut-in, of all things! And then….

It was a bit indistinct in his mind, like an image held underwater, but Gandalf muttered something about how it would be most amusing for him, and the next thing Bilbo knew, he was waking up on his study floor with one hell of a hangover, which made no sense since he hadn't been drinking. Of course, his first assumption was Gandalf had spiked Bilbo's tea. Or thumped him a good one over the head.

He only realized he'd become incorporeal when he tried to pick up his phone. He'd failed. His hand went straight through his phone and on down through his study desk.

It had been quite a shock. Bilbo had thought he was dead, but after a lengthy panic attack he realized there was no body. Bilbo's body was nowhere in the room, and last Bilbo knew, he'd been hovering over Gandalf's form sitting comfortably in one of Bilbo's vintage leather wingbacks. That'd been shortly after Gandalf called him a stuffy shut-in. Then his world had gone fuzzy around the edges, dizziness punched him in the stomach and he'd woken up on his own study floor, right where he'd been standing. It was around then Bilbo had patted himself over; as far as he could tell, he was still occupying his own body, thank-you, no matter how intangible it had apparently become since Gandalf's… visit. Mischief. Ghostification.

Then Bilbo had noticed the note on the table where Gandalf had sat.

_I regret to inform you,_ it read, as if Bilbo were an applicant who had been turned down! The nerve! Bilbo had huffed, and grumbled under his breath with a fresh upwelling of indignation. Well, regardless, it read:

> _Bilbo Baggins,_
> 
> _I regret to inform you other matters have come up that keep me from staying for supper after all. We shall have to reminisce about your fine parents another time. I look forward to seeing you as soon as your schedule allows._
> 
> _Sincerely,  
>  Grey_

As if it wasn't Gandalf who cancelled in the first place! Good riddance, Bilbo had thought. He hardly needed such a rude disturber of Bilbo's perfectly comfortable peace hanging around. He was certain his schedule would not allow for any insufferable dinner guests in the future!

But then Bilbo caught the sight of a hastily added post-script:

> _I suppose you shall be as obstinate as your father… Don't worry about the side-effects, they will wear away when you find what you're hiding from._

What sort of nonsense letter—nonsense postscript—was that? What side-effects? Had Gandalf drugged his tea?

At least Bilbo started to piece together what had happened. Hard as it was for him to believe. He almost certainly wasn't dead. Hr was simply … Gandalfed.

Though what the blasted old man meant by 'find what you're hiding from,' Bilbo had not the faintest clue. He wasn't hiding from anything. And if he were, how was he supposed to find it? How was he even supposed to know?

It was all nonsense. Utter tosh.

But he knew he had to figure out what it meant or he'd be stuck like this forever. And Lobelia would turn his father's beautiful historical apartment complex on the edge of the park into some cheap affair. In the meanwhile, he was stuck, haunting his own apartment, which was now someone else's apartment. The irritating Thorin Durinson's apartment, an unfairly attractive man who Bilbo had instantly disliked when he'd said,

"'Bag-End'? Who the hell names their apartment? And something like 'Bag-End'? Idiotic drivel." And promptly yanked his father's old, hand-carved sign off the wall by the door and tossed it to the floor.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful art in this chapter was made by the talented [northerntrash](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/118436307967/nts-fic-recs-12-im-killing-time-and-times), who is also [an incredibly skilled author](http://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash), so go check out their work! :)


	2. Bag-End

"'Bag-End'? Who the hell names their apartment? And something like 'Bag-End'? Idiotic drivel." Thorin tugged the placard off the wall, turning it in his hands. The front was carved and sanded smooth, the words 'Bag-End' painted an emerald green with bright flowers and dark vines twining around the lettering, but on the back it was rough and plain, with a trail of paint here and there where the artist had let the acrylic run. In the center were roughly carved words, 'B & B Baggins, our second collaboration,' whatever that meant.

But hadn't the landlady been named Baggins? No, Sackville-Baggins, that was it. Perhaps she would want the sign, if the maker was a relation.

"God willing the rest of the flat isn't dripping with fanciful bullshit," he muttered, dropping his duffle on the floor and the sign on top of it. "Never rent a place sight unseen, Balin said. Perhaps he was right." Thorin shivered and looked up suddenly. He'd thought he heard—but no, there was no one else in here, and if there were, Thorin would be having it out with the landlady. Probably a terrible way to spend his first day in his new flat.

The fully furnished aspect to the flat Mrs. Sackville-Baggins had advertised had been a blessing Thorin hadn't wanted to turn down, whatever Balin's advice. The place had been remarkably cheap, considering it was supposedly furnished, with accessible transit lines that went straight downtown, and prime access to the largest park in the city right outside the front door. His nephews would love that part.

The Shire Apartments were nothing to scoff at, so Thorin had jumped at the deal. He'd been in a rush to move back from across the pond, and the hotel he'd found himself in had been infested. With people, not roaches. People were worse.

Thorin loved that the apartment took up the entire top floor of the building, and had two balconies with extraordinary views. The place had more than he ever wanted out of a home, including three bedrooms, which meant he had a spare room for when his nephews stayed over, and the third bedroom could be converted into an office.

There was also a garden on the roof that belonged to the top floor tenant, but Thorin didn't particularly care about it one way or another. The view would be incredible, but he had two balconies for that. His nephews might like playing up there, but they wouldn't be over enough to make it worthwhile. What was the point of having a garden when there was the park right across the street? Perhaps someone else in the building would take it over; Thorin didn't want to deal with it.

"Too many books," he sighed, when he rounded the corner of the entry hall and stepped into the large, open living room. The pitfalls of a furnished flat were suddenly becoming clear. It would take weeks to clear out the junk he didn't want to keep. "Probably the lot of them romances, if that wish-washy sign is anything to go by."

At least whoever had decorated wasn't a complete simpleton. The living room at the end of the entry hall was lined with bookshelves, but the shelves were wood, oak from the look of them, and the colors of the room were agreeably earthy to match. He was a little leery of the cream colored sofa, but he'd live. No doubt Kíli would spill grape juice all over it the first chance he got, but Thorin would deal with that when it happened.

He picked up his phone absently when it began vibrating in his back pocket, surveying the room. "Hey Dís."

"How is it?" she demanded without preamble.

"You're not the one moving in," he said, rolling his eyes.

"If I have to hear you whinge one more hour about the shithole you're staying at I will kill us both. A terrifying notion, as it'd mean Frerin would be raising my hellhounds," Dís said, and Thorin winced in horrified agreement. "And if you bought another dump because you couldn't be arsed to see it before signing a lease…" she threatened, overdramatic in Thorin's opinion. "How is it?"

"I was busy. And I've only seen the one room," he said. "It's got good bones. The far wall is an entire bay of windows, lead lining with paned glass, including French doors leading out onto a full-length balcony, classic iron trellis railing, far too many plants. God, the woman who owned this place must have been nuts."

"Gossiping with the neighbors already?" Dís drawled.

He rolled his eyes. "I haven't seen a soul, it's like a ghost town in the halls, but it's not hard to tell from the detritus here. The owner wasn't joking when she said this place came fully furnished, you should see some of it. Knickknacks, figurines. _Doilies_. And enough books and plants to start both a library and an atrium. It's like no one's disturbed a single thing."

"You can get rid of whatever you want, or put it into storage, idiot," Dís said. "What's the _place_ look like? And did you bother asking what happened to the last tenant?"

"Died, mysterious circumstances, she said," Thorin said, and picked up what looked like a flower preserved in crystal off one of the shelves. Belladonna, he recognized vaguely. The old tenant kept preserved poisonous plants around? What the fuck? He didn't bother looking at the books, he'd deal with them later.

"Dead," Dís said, deadpan.

"It was part of why this place is a bargain," Thorin replied. "Apparently death scares off most renters."

"Normal people, you mean," his sister said.

"I never claimed to be normal. The furniture's decent, even if the rest of it's a bit frilly. I'm surprised no family came to pick anything up."

"Just pack it up," Dís said again. "You get what you pay for."

"The place is great," Thorin argued, though he'd only seen one room. He'd looked at Shire apartments before. "The living room is two stories high, exposed brick, full wall of windows, the colors aren't a complete nightmare, the structure's sound. The original building owner kept the building's era in mind when they renovated forty years ago. Come with me as I inspect the rest of the place," he added, voice dry. He turned to the nearest door, the one next to the stair that led up to the half floor upstairs. "First bedroom," he said to Dís. "Or probably third bedroom, since it looks like a guest room. Bed, wardrobe, desk, bookshelves, none of the knickknacks like the living room, but God, I'm surprised the floor hasn't given way under the weight of all the books."

"Some people read, Thorin," Dís said. "You know, those _books_ you keep mentioning? People like to open them and look at the words in a mildly focused fashion. It's been all the rage for just these past five thousand years."

Thorin ignored her. "The room's huge. We can replace the full bed and get a couple twin ones, the boys would love it. Maybe a bunk bed thing, like they're always whinging for."

"They'll never want to leave your place." Dís laughed. "Yes, do it. Get bunk beds."

Thorin smiled though she couldn't see him. "Discreet, Dís, really. So subtle. Room's got a nice view too. Three more of the floor to ceiling windows, and you can see the west side of the park, where that pond is."

He stepped out of the room and trekked over to the kitchen across the living room. He was glad it was tucked behind a door, instead of being an open kitchen—an overdone concept in Thorin's opinion—but he literally stopped in his tracks in the doorway. "Christ," he said.

"Found the body attached to this 'mysterious death,' did you?" Dís asked.

Thorin didn't answer, gaping.

"Thorin?" Dís pushed, sounding more alert.

"It's a chef's kitchen," he said, still shocked. "All marble countertops and steel appliances, tiled floor. Jesus, the stove has eight burners. Who needs eight burners? And… two—no, three ovens? A butcher block island. And … no, one of the ovens is a steamer, I think. Christ. And ten thousand appliances. Who _needs_ all this?"

"Breathe, Thorin," Dís said, and Thorin realized he'd been rambling at high speed.

"…and no microwave." He realized, scanning over the kitchen again. "How could there be no microwave?"

"You can buy a microwave," Dís said, exasperated. "You do, in fact, have money. It's accessible by one of those little plastic cards you have in your wallet."

"You should see this place," he said, ignoring her and stepping quickly into the half of the kitchen that was actually a kitchen. He'd vaguely observed a dining area, but he was still too gobsmacked to look, eyes glued to the lavish space. "And there's a pantry of some sort tucked behind it," he said in disbelief. "Jesus."

"Breathe," Dís said again.

"Half of it looks like a pantry, and the other side is a laundry with washer and dryer," he said, and suddenly felt like he needed to sit down. He leaned against the pantry door. "Christ, Dís. Was the woman a millionaire?"

"Starting to sound like it. Why would the landlady rent this out for peanuts?"

"Fuck if I know." He turned to look out past the kitchen to the dining area. "There's a kitchen bar dividing the room, and on the far side is a six-person dining table, and full windows with another door that goes out onto the balcony," he told her, knowing he sounded as disbelieving as he felt. "I'm not sure I want to go see what the rest of the place looks like."

"You better. And you're sending me pictures as soon as you're off the phone."

"Fuck's sake, Dís, just come over for dinner."

"I'm working tonight, last minute deadline. I shouldn't even be talking to you, but I wanted to make sure you hadn't fucked up again," she said blithely. "But I can bring the boys over for lunch tomorrow. Now get your arse upstairs and tell me what the rest of the place looks like."

"…I should have been tipped off when I found out it has two floors," Thorin said. But in truth, he'd thought it would be more like a loft than a second floor. After all what else did "second half floor" mean? But no, when he left the kitchen and looked up the stairs he could see a railed hallway spanning the width of the living room, with two doors: the two bedrooms that sat over the huge kitchen-dining room downstairs.

"It's not like you can't afford a millionaire flat," Dís finally said.

"Maybe. Barely. That's not the point. What's wrong with it? It doesn't make any sense it would be rented out so cheaply."

"Maybe between the death and the detritus, your landlady couldn't pawn it off."

Thorin hummed noncommittally, and headed for the first door. When he pushed open the door he stared, and blinked, and stared a little more. It wasn't a bedroom, it was an office. Or, more accurately, a study reminiscent of aristocrats in those old films his parents always used to pick for movie night.

"Thorin?" Dís called, sounding annoyed.

"More books," he said shortly, and ignored the way Dís started laughing. Wall-to-wall bookcases crammed full of books, with a small desk pushed snugly between two of them. There were two brown leather armchairs in the middle of the room with a small reading table between them, and a bar tucked away behind them. He told Dís.

"Well, you wanted an office, didn't you?"

"My own, not someone else's," he grumbled. He walked around the room, marveling. "The desk is littered with private letters," he said, quietly, as though the previous owner could hear him. A shiver ran the length of his spine. "Why wouldn't they clean any of this out? It's like nobody _cares_." It was a depressing thought, that the man who lived here before him hadn't had anyone to miss him, not even Mrs. Sackville-Baggins, who must be a relative. Because Thorin finally knew who the previous tenant was, and it hadn't been a woman. The letters on top of the desk were all addressed to or from one Dr. Bilbo Baggins. He didn't tell his sister.

"And the last room?" She prompted, jarring Thorin from his thoughts. He looked up and around, half expecting this Bilbo Baggins to step out of the dark shadows of the study and tell Thorin to get the hell out of his flat.

He didn't find the man, but he did find a door tucked away between another pair of shelves. He stepped over to it, guessing it was a connector to the master bedroom, which turned out to be correct.

He found he didn't really care to describe it to Dís though.

The master bedroom was everything the study was not. Where the study was grim and shadowy, suffering from a lack of windows and too much dark furniture, the bedroom was light and airy. Like the kitchen and living room, one entire wall was made up of windows and another set of French doors that led out onto a smaller balcony. On the balcony was a little café table and singular chair, and another small reading table with a soft armchair sat in one corner of the room. 

Each window was framed with gauzy beige curtains, so light they easily let every ray of sunlight in. A matching set of wardrobe and dresser sat against the walls, and a large, dark bed with intricately carved posts in the shape of trees sat against another. The bed was curtained with dark green drapes twining around the branches, an odd compromise for allowing so much light into the room. Not to Thorin's taste, but he had to admit it was a handsome piece of furniture.

And by some perverse twist of fate, because obviously fate defied all of Thorin's basic desires, Thorin found buying a fully furnished flat felt exactly like invading someone else's.

~*~

Bilbo wanted Thorin to get the hell out of his flat, and he told him so. Unfortunately, Thorin couldn't hear him. More's the pity. Bilbo had more than a few uncomplimentary things he'd like the man to hear about his clothing, and his ridiculous long hair—what century did he think they were living in again?—and his taste in … everything.

For God's sake, the man couldn't appreciate a state-of-the-art kitchen. He barely knew what a steamer was. He wanted a _microwave_. The very roots of Bilbo's soul were in an uproar of sheer offense.

And then his things! His father's things! His mother's things! The man stalked around Bilbo's apartment and pawed at everything and sneered at everything, like he owned it and thought it was complete shite! How bloody _rude_ does one get? As if Bilbo was dead—

Oh.

Well.

His point still stood. He _wasn't_ dead, as best as he could tell. Even if nobody could see him, and he couldn't touch anything, or eat anything (nothing!), and nobody could hear him.

Except for perhaps cats. More than once he was sure he caught the cats of the neighbor on the third floor staring at him. A pair of Siamese with attitude problems and matching penchants for Holman's goldfish. Unfortunately, they didn't speak English and couldn't pass on his SOS.

What he wouldn't give for a cup of tea and a psychic.

…well, that was a thought, wasn't it? He could try a psychic.

After all, he could not stand for this. Some bloke… Some, some…arse had spent the last thirty minutes insulting Bilbo's books—apparently the git couldn't read—and calling Bilbo a woman. What sort of savage made assumptions on a person's gender based on _owning things with letters on them_?

Heathen.

Bilbo could not let this man live in his home and rifle through his things. Bilbo glared furiously at him from where he was sifting through Bilbo's letters in his study.

What type of person assumed it was acceptable behavior to nose through someone else's mail?

"Those are _private_ ," Bilbo sniped at his back. "And Lobelia may have told you I was dead, but she's an odious woman who never forgave me for surviving that car crash. So, I'm alive. Still. You can _get out_."

Lobelia's handpicked tenant—the only person willing to sign the lease, Bilbo knew, for he'd been following her around since she'd inspected his apartment, only six weeks after Bilbo had vanished, rattling into her phone the entire time how she planned to rent it out for everything it was worth.

He'd been so furious when he'd realized Lobelia's plans that he'd sent one of his books skittering across the room, making Lobelia jump out of her skin and drop her phone. That was when he figured out he could move things if he focused enough. Or at least was mad enough.

About thirty seconds after that he'd had another panic attack about his possibly being dead after all, letter or no letter from the mysterious and mildly terrifying—and utterly infuriating—Gandalf. _Ghosts_ moved things around in a poltergeist fashion, _not_ … temporarily intangible people. Right?

But he'd calmed down, and clung to Gandalf's promise, even if a large part of him wondered if he could trust the word of a mysterious stranger who turned perfectly innocent people intangible. 

An hour after that he'd started practicing. It'd taken him weeks to get the hang of it, but thankfully Lobelia needed the same time to get him declared dead. He tried not to think too hard on the fact that the more time that passed, the more it started to seem like was, indeed, very dead, and he was just a ghost with a spectacular sense of denial. If he ever saw Gandalf again, he would haunt the irritating man for the rest of his ... life.

But Bilbo had scared off every one of Lobelia's potential buyers, protecting his home the only way he knew how: by moving things here and there, making the room suddenly chill or heat, or getting a small wind to blow against the backs of their necks. It would have been amusing, if it didn't make Bilbo feel deader than ever, which was saying something.

And Bilbo would have scared this Thorin off too, if the man had bothered coming to look at the place. But oh no, he had to sign the lease sight unseen. Git.

Now he wasn't sure what he could do. The man _had_ signed the lease, and he spoke like he had no interest in returning to wherever he came from. Bilbo was likely stuck with him.

He followed Thorin into his bedroom, watching him inspect his newly acquired goods.

"Bed," he grunted into the phone. "Dresser, wardrobe, windows." There was the tinny sound of his caller, someone named Dís, responding. Dís was likely commenting on Thorin's remarkable ability to draw such vivid images with his descriptions, if the way Thorin rolled his eyes was any indication.

"I've got to go, Dís. See you tomorrow," he said, and with no further ado hung up. Bilbo was surprised this Thorin managed to make or keep any friends, the way he acted.

Thorin sighed, traced his hand over the carved leaves on the nearest bedpost.

Bilbo frowned at him. "Mind yourself. That is an heirloom."

Thorin's hand fell away.

Bilbo stilled, and stared. No, it couldn't be. It was just a coincidence.

"Can you hear me?" he asked tentatively. Thorin didn't respond. So Bilbo said it again, putting as much focus as he could into the words, half shouting them, "Can you hear me!" Thorin didn't respond. Just a coincidence. Bilbo sighed.

Thorin sat on the edge of the bed and fell backward, sighing as well.

"Bilbo Baggins," he said to Bilbo's ceiling.

Bilbo stared at him again, mouth falling open.

"I wonder who you were."

~*~


	3. Aristotle is a Classic

"No TV?" Thorin muttered, and Bilbo rolled his eyes from where he was trailing behind him. "How the hell did I miss that last night?"

"Maybe because you fell asleep draped half over my bed, half on the floor like some lunatic five minutes after you hung up on Dís," Bilbo said to his back. He crossed his arms. "And don't you touch my books, you bibliophobe."

Thorin touched his books. Bilbo hissed his displeasure, and his mother's glass belladonna paperweight wobbled next to where Thorin stood groping at Bilbo's collection of folklore.

Thorin froze in his perusal, frowned at the flower, and carefully pushed it out of reach. "First thing that goes," he said to himself, and went back to the books. Bilbo's flare of outrage caused the Russian fairy tales Thorin was grasping to yank out of his grip and straight to the floor.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

Bilbo tucked his hands under his arms as if that would control the telekinetic outbursts of his temper, glaring all the while. "Don't touch my mum's things," he said severely.

Thorin only picked up the book once more and set it aside.

Things got worse from there, at least from Bilbo's perspective. Shortly after that incident, Thorin went out. It felt like a reprieve until, twenty minutes later, he'd returned with _boxes_. Bilbo only marginally managed to hold back his temper, and somehow kept from flinging his books around himself, most likely at Thorin's head.

Two hours later, Bilbo sat on his sofa across the room and petulantly watched Thorin read the spines of his classics before packing half of them away. More than half. He looked morosely to the five already filled boxes that sat, squat and forlorn, near the entry hall. When he looked back he nearly had a heart attack.

" _Not my Greek_ ," Bilbo shrieked, and the admittedly precarious pile of books Thorin had stacked on the floor at his side came tumbling down into the man's lap. Bilbo was already across the room by the time Thorin had jerked back and cursed. He hovered anxiously over his shoulder, ignoring the way Thorin muttered and cursed more.. "Put that Aristotle back on the shelf this instant," he ordered. "Do you _know_ what you're _touching_? That copy is older than the both of us put together, I'll have you know."

"Aristotle," Thorin said, sounding waspish as he flipped carelessly through the pages. Bilbo twitched, and looked down at the top of Thorin's head, where long grey-speckled black hair was pulled back in the neat ponytail Thorin seemed to favor. Surely… Surely, Thorin hadn't heard him?

Then Thorin said, "Such a pain in the arse. Every one of his theories was fucking boring."

Bilbo scowled and stepped back. Barely a full day the man had been around, and Bilbo was already getting heartily sick of Thorin appearing to respond to him only for it to be some new inane comment out of his mouth. "Aristotle," Bilbo said, fully aware how snotty his tone had gotten, "is a _classic_. I should like to see where you would be without his brilliant study on philosophy, or politics! Rhetoric!"

Thorin snorted. "All he did was help the world create lawyers." Then he frowned, staring down at the book, his large, calloused hand spanning across the cover.

Bilbo stared down at him. " _Physics_ , then. There's no pleasing you, is there? Never mind that he taught Alexander the Great. You would sneer in the face of Einstein or Byron or, or… or Gordon Ramsay!"

There was a long minute of motionless silence. Then Thorin shook himself and set Aristotle in the box.

"I hate you," Bilbo muttered.

~*~

The knock on the door was a welcome reprieve from the torture of watching his new tenant pack away all of Bilbo's precious things. That lasted about thirty seconds.

"Oh, you have boys!" Bilbo said, and he wasn't sure if he was speaking to the woman in the doorway or Thorin, because he didn't know whose boys they were. For that matter, he wasn't really speaking to anyone, since no one could hear him, but that wasn't the point.

"Uncle!" They shouted in unison, even as Thorin spread his arms in invitation.

"Fíli, Kíli," he laughed, and caught the two lads when they threw themselves at him, lifting them easily off the ground, though the blond—Fíli?—had to be twelve, and the brunet—presumably Kíli—not far behind, ten or eleven perhaps.

They were nephews then, and so the dark-eyed woman had to be their mother, Thorin's sister. They did bear a striking resemblance, with the same sharp, patrician noses, thick dark hair, and high cheekbones.

"I'm chopped liver, am I?" The sister, Dís, said from the door, watching the tableau with amusement.

"No, mum," Kíli said cheerfully. "You're _broccoli_."

Thorin snorted and swatted him over the head before dragging Dís into a hug. "It's good to see you."

"I know it is. You've been without my charismatic presence for so long. New York must have been torture for you." But the tight hold she had around his shoulders belied her words. Bilbo smiled to see it, liking her instantly.

"Out of the blue I find myself missing it," Thorin said, and kicked the door closed behind her. Bilbo didn't laugh, he _didn't_ , not even a little. He refused to find anything likeable about Thorin, interloper of flats and packer of books. "Come on through. I've got a stack of takeout menus a mile long."

And user of takeout menus. Bilbo needed a lie down. "You don't," he started, and stopped, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a steadying breath. "You do not," he started again, "absolutely _do not_ own a kitchen such as mine and then order _takeout_."

Bilbo was sure Dís's arched eyebrow agreed with him.

"What're in all the boxes?" A voice called out gleefully, and Bilbo whirled from where he'd been watching the older siblings to find Kíli poking his head into the topmost box at the end of the hall.

"Not my Plato!" he wailed. "Hands off this instant, young man!"

"Packing up the 'detritus' already?" Dís asked, stepping past Thorin to tug lightly on her son's hair. "Get your nose out of there, you demon. Those aren't your things."

"They're Uncle's things!" Kíli protested with a whine, clinging to the flap of the box until it started tearing down the side.

"They're not," Thorin said, and nudged his nephew away, pushing the torn flap back into place. "You can have a look later, Kíli, but they're not ours to keep."

"Selling them?" Dís asked.

Thorin pushed them toward the kitchen, calling Fíli over from where he was standing on the sofa, trailing his fingers over the art canvases hanging there, the outcome of Erestor pawning off Glorfindel's occasional forays into art patronage. Bilbo closed his eyes against the sight and refused to think about it, about kids' shoes tromping across the beige fabric of his couch, or sticky fingers poking at his art, or he'd really have to go have a lie down.

"Storage," Thorin grunted, recapturing Bilbo's attention, and Bilbo caught sight of him finally giving up on distracting Kíli and picking the boy straight up off the floor to haul him bodily into the kitchen. "I'll call the landlady and ask what she wants done with everything, but there's plenty of storage in the basement, so it'll do for now."

"Storage?" Bilbo stopped in his tracks, and winced as the kitchen door swung through his incorporeal self. So he couldn't _feel_ the door hit him, or move through him. That didn't make knowing it was happening feel any better. He hurried through the swinging door, looking at Thorin hopefully. "You're putting my things in storage?"

"It doesn't feel right, tossing the stuff," Thorin said as he put the kettle on. He waved behind him. "The menus are on the table. Pick something out."

Bilbo decided to let their version of lunch slide, in the face of this suddenly kind, thoughtful side of Thorin.

Then he had a thought.

"…you better make sure the basement is dry. They're _books_ , they don't do well in damp, and I know for a fact it gets musty down there."

~*~

It probably said a worrying lot about Bilbo that he found it so easy to talk to Thorin, like the man could actually hear him. Which he couldn't. Hear Bilbo. Despite the occasional ambiguous evidence. Several days in, that was abundantly clear.

Perhaps Gandalf had been right about Bilbo living away from the world too long. Bilbo wouldn't call himself a _shut-in_ by any stretch, but, he'd known Gandalf was a little bit right, when he'd said it. That was why Bilbo had felt so indignant, defensive even. Which did not justify Gandalf's poor manners and atrocious actions after that, but…

But surely it wasn't normal that Bilbo didn't mind having a conversational partner who couldn't actually hold a conversation, like Bilbo had been talking to himself too long.

God, he was probably inches away from getting goldfish to talk to.

Or had been, at any rate. Bilbo wasn't in any position to get goldfish anymore. And besides, now he had Thorin.

Which, alright, Bilbo knew that was not a healthy feeling to have. Thorin was not a pet, obviously, and Bilbo was incorporeal, and having a living human to keep one company opposed to being alive and having a goldfish, _well_ , the obvious preference was clear.

And still, having Thorin around to talk to felt a great deal better than having a fish, despite the circumstances. Bilbo felt a little bit more in the world than he had before. He didn't miss the irony of that.

They were falling into a strangely comfortable routine, and Bilbo liked it. Even if that routine involved Thorin disturbing Bilbo on deep, torturous levels every time he brought home more boxes to pack up his belongings.

Or at least Bilbo had fallen into a routine with Thorin. Thorin really hadn't with Bilbo, considering he didn't know Bilbo was there. But Thorin had fallen into his own routine, and Bilbo sort of … floated around it and got himself involved. In little ways, here and there, that Thorin didn't seem to notice, but still. It felt nice, having someone be a part of his life again.

~*~

Things were quite different two weeks after Thorin moved in. Of course by 'things' Bilbo meant his flat was entirely remade.

'Entirely remade' meant, if he were honest with himself, that his flat still looked like itself, still looked like _his_ , only it was obvious someone else had moved in with him.

It was … nice, after a fashion, if nice could be defined as something that disturbed Bilbo down to his marrow. He'd _not_ moved in with someone, even though in a sense he rather had, since Thorin had deigned to move while Bilbo was still there. Every time Bilbo thought about the entire mess his thoughts started spiraling in circles and inevitably gave him a migraine, which was unfair as far as Bilbo was concerned. If he didn't have a tangible body he shouldn't have to suffer tangible headaches either.

But it was nice, after a fashion, to have Thorin come home every night, living and using Bilbo's place like the home it was always meant to be. Lived in. Enjoyed. Disturbed.

Yet, if Thorin didn't start using coasters soon, Bilbo would start putting them in his bed and let the man _sleep_ on them. For God's sake, it was not a difficult concept: cup of liquid? Put a coaster under it!

Bilbo even helpfully left them lying around on the various wooden surfaces Thorin thought were appropriate places to set cold bottles of beer or hot cups of coffee. The man could not take a hint. He'd pick up the coaster with a confused frown crinkling between his eyes and at the corners of his mouth, and _set it aside_.

Bilbo almost vibrated with anger thinking about it.

He sighed, took a deep breath and focused on calm images, and went back to perusing the newspaper Thorin had left open on the dining table, every now and then turning the pages by pretending there was a flutter of wind from the open terrace door.

Thorin glanced over at the paper only occasionally, making that soft frown he did, eyebrows drawing down, blue eyes darkening in vaguely irritated confusion, but otherwise he let Bilbo and the paper be. He was too preoccupied with whatever work he was doing on his laptop—some architectural design, Bilbo suspected, having discovered Thorin was an architect some days ago.

The man could design buildings down to the last floorboard, but he couldn't be arsed to protect furniture from mug rings. Bilbo didn't understand it.

The kitchen was almost untouched by Thorin's—questionable—sense of decoration, which Bilbo couldn't say for the rest of the apartment. Grandma Laura's old teal-colored dining table still occupied the space in front of the balcony windows. When Bilbo had been little, he and his mother had painted yellow, orange and purple flowers curling around its edges like a colorful, creeping vine. Grandma Laura hadn't been impressed on her next visit.

The kitchen proper was also much the same, still a chef's vision of pristine marble and steel, but Thorin had packed away most of Bilbo's appliances and dishes: everything from his mixers down to his ramekins. He'd only kept the espresso machine and blender, and installed a hideous monstrosity of a microwave. If Thorin started storing pans or papers or what-have-you in Bilbo's ovens they would be having _words_ , never mind that Thorin couldn't hear him.

The living room had fared slightly worse. Most of Bilbo's books were gone, pared down to two measly bookcases tucked into an unobtrusive corner of the room. The rest of his things—books, little artifacts, little memories, the rest of his shelving—had been taken down to storage.

A media center had been bought.

A TV had been installed.

And Thorin had brought in _floating shelves_ to put up, though he'd not got around to it yet.

The only thing that had ever 'floated' through Bilbo's flat to date was himself, and he wasn't best pleased about that either. Didn't Thorin know floating shelves could hardly hold their own weight? Never mind that the man had just stuffed perfectly lovely, real bookshelves down in storage. And if Bilbo heard Thorin muttering about oppressive furniture and opening up the space once more he would….

Well, he didn't know what he would. Fling a coaster at Thorin's head, in all likelihood.

Bilbo couldn't walk through the living room anymore without cringing, no matter how tasteful the media center was, or how the TV could be hidden by wooden doors. (Thorin always left the blasted thing open. Bilbo always closed it.)

And Bilbo's plants, every last one of them, from the potted palm to the hanging geraniums, sat shoved into one bright corner of the room, awaiting some horrific fate Bilbo couldn't bring himself to contemplate. Execution, most likely.

He'd started sneaking the smaller, hardier plants up to the roof garden, a place Thorin seemed to abhor. Bilbo wouldn't complain about the man's lack of interest in a very fine garden when said disinterest gave his poor plants a refuge.

Bilbo was staring at the newspaper, sight unseen, and it was almost a relief when there came a knock on the front door. He trailed after Thorin for lack of anything better to do, and if he closed his eyes as he passed through the living room, well, nobody knew it but him.

"Can I help you?" Thorin asked, deep voice a stark contrast to the quick, suspicious one that piped up next.

"I heard you're the new tenant in 14B," Holman said gruffly from where Bilbo couldn't see him behind Thorin's bulk. "Came to check in with you."

He didn't sound pleased about it. Bilbo had never heard such a wonderful sound in all his life. "Holman!" He cried. "I thought you weren't back from Ireland for another week!"

Holman had taken his allotted vacation three days after Lobelia took over, leaving the care of the building to his cousin, Hamfast Gamgee. Belle Gamgee hadn't been best pleased with Holman's sudden vacation, his small defiance against Lobelia's takeover.

Holman, of course, couldn't hear Bilbo.

"That's… nice," Thorin said. "You're a neighbor then?"

Holman snorted. "Aye, Holman Green, a neighbor, right down below in 12A. More likely you'll be calling me about maintenance than anything neighborly, my dollar says."

Thorin was offended. Bilbo could tell by the way his shoulders tensed, lifting marginally. "Don't mind him," he said fretfully. "Holman's a good sort, Thorin. He's… angry, right now, and you're a good person to take it out on."

"I see," was all Thorin said.

Holman shuffled in place, if the rustle of cloth was anything to go by. "Is there anything you need done?"

"No, nothing," he said.

"My plants!" Bilbo hissed, and ineffectually tried to poke Thorin in the shoulder, pulling back quickly with a squeamish twist of his belly as his finger poked _through_ him. Not that Bilbo's stomach had anything to throw up; Bilbo hadn't eaten in months now. "Holman! Holman, my _plants_. You have to rescue them, they're _crowded_ , and he doesn't know they need water, for God's sake, and he's probably plotting to lob them straight off the balcony," he said, standing on tiptoe in a vain effort to see over Thorin's shoulder. Holman and Bilbo were of a height at 5'6", but Thorin positively towered over them both. He had to be over six feet, if Bilbo was an inch.

"Alright, if you think of anything, it's 12A. I do all sorts around here: plumbing, electric, repair, maintenance. Can help out with most things, should you have a need," Holman said, and turned away.

"Holman," Bilbo wailed. "Thorin, _stop him_."

"Wait," Thorin called. He hesitated, then said, "Do you know why this apartment is 14B? I know skipping the thirteenth floor was common practice when this place was built, but why the B? There's only one apartment on this floor."

Holman was undoubtedly giving him a funny look, if his tone of voice was anything to go by. "This was a Baggins place from day one of the Shire's renovations. Bilbo lives here—" he stopped, and Bilbo heard him take a sharp breath. "Well, before Bilbo there'd been his parents, and they had as peculiar a sense of humor as they come. For Baggins, you see?"

"Ah. Thank you. I'd thought perhaps there'd been more apartments up here once."

Bilbo stepped back from Thorin, the rest of their conversation drowned out by the sudden roaring in his ears. He felt chilled.

B for Baggins.

A Baggins had always lived in Bag-End.

Still did, Bilbo hoped, even if no one knew it.

Lived was sort of the key word there.

Thorin glanced over his shoulder, that customary frown back as he scanned the hall as though looking for something.

"Mr. Green," he called down the hall. "Do you know anything about plants?"

Bilbo breathed in, a sharp, hot feeling sprouting in his chest, warming the thaw in him, and stared as Thorin conversed with Holman about moving Bilbo's plants.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My plan is to update once a week, but sometimes things come up unexpectedly. If I suspect that will happen, I'll aim to update earlier, but I won't always be able to. Just wanted to let everyone know!
> 
> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr. (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	4. Disposition Alone

After that, Bilbo felt a little more charitable toward Thorin. Yes, the man had come in and ripped out all of Bilbo's things—alright, most of his things. Half. He'd come and … nicely and carefully packed up half of Bilbo's things and put them in storage. And yes, he was a hopeless cook, and worse (nonexistent) gardener, and Bilbo still wasn't sure he actually understood what a book was, but…

Well, Bilbo rather liked him, despite himself. He made caustic remarks when he watched television; Bilbo didn't really understand _why_ he watched those silly shows then, but they were a great deal more entertaining when Thorin was snarking at them. And he made sure Bilbo's belongings were looked after even if he didn't want them.

And he was rather sweet, behind the brooding frowns and long silences and sharp tongue. He bantered with his sister, and entertained his nephews even when he had work to finish, and no matter how short he was with his words, he was kind with his actions.

It was about around that realization when Bilbo decided to start helping Thorin out about the place.

Well, help _more_. The coasters still went entirely over Thorin's head, a continually futile effort on Bilbo's part.

He recalled Thorin's plans for the floating shelves, and when Thorin went out to some site or another three days later, Bilbo put them up.

It was a bit of a trick since he needed a great deal of focus to manage the drill. But for the rest of it, once he got the holes in, screwing everything in place was a cinch.

It wouldn't have taken a tangible person four hours, but nonetheless. Bilbo knew how to work with what he had, and what he had was his intangible self.

When Thorin arrived home, he didn't notice.

For two days.

Then he stared at the shelves, plucked one off the wall to inspect the moorings before carefully slotting it back into place, seeming satisfied with the work.

Then he said, "What the hell?"

Bilbo, who'd been trying to enjoy the breeze near the balcony door—Thorin had a habit of leaving the doors open, Bilbo couldn't complain—glanced back at him and rolled his eyes. "I did that two days ago. I think we should get your eyesight checked." And then, without any heat, "Bloody ingrate."

"Mr. Green must have been here," Thorin muttered. "Pretty sure that's illegal."

But he ran his hand thoughtfully across one shelf, and the next day he tucked a bottle of wine beside Holman's door as a thank-you.

Bilbo didn't know whether to be horribly pleased or annoyed, so he settled on both and went up to the garden to collapse for awhile. Days later and he was still feeling a little worn from putting the shelves up.

It made him uneasy, but learning to move things at all had been exhausting at first too. Maybe it was like exercising a muscle, or learning a new craft. He had to practice at it before he could use it with ease.

He hoped he wouldn't be incorporeal that long, and tried to quell the worry plucking at him by watching the clouds scud across the blue afternoon sky.

~*~

"You have a hair dryer," Bilbo said, looking down at Thorin from the railing of the second floor. Thorin, of course, didn't answer, but continued flipping through one of Bilbo's books where he lounged on the couch.

"You have a _hair dryer_ ," he repeated, as if that would help anything. He fiddled with the cuff of his button-up—the same button-up he'd been wearing when Gandalf ambushed him, the same one he'd been wearing for months now, still pristinely white and neatly ironed, matched with his dark green slacks. He was also tousle-haired and barefoot, having neither straightened his hair nor put on his socks before that unexpected tea. Bilbo had never liked walking around in shoes or socks for as long as he could remember, and so never wore them around the house, and here he was, ghostified—or Gandalfed, as he preferred to think of it—and unkempt. It was so cursedly inconvenient, and another affront to lay at Gandalf's feet. At least he'd not had the misfortune of _meeting_ anyone in this state.

…not that there were many—or any—people to meet in this state. Unless there were ghosts, or more victims of Gandalf, who could see him. But if there were, Bilbo had yet to run across anyone.

Why Bilbo's clothes didn't get dirty or worn, he couldn't begin to guess. The same way he couldn't guess why he didn't feel hunger, why he didn't starve, why he didn't need sleep unless he interacted with the physical world, but he could still get headaches or feel flushed. Bilbo didn't understand _any_ of it, it was simply a thing that was, a fact.

He couldn't even research the matter without taxing his energy and unduly upsetting the librarian of his favorite haunt. No pun intended.

That was if he could work out what he ought to look up in the first place. He wasn't a ghost, but what else could he call it by any sensible definition? For all that he admired the scientists of the world, the furthest his science ever went was the chemistry of the kitchen. He couldn't even manage well in the more subjective sciences like psychology. His one—and only—time doing volunteer work at the hospital's ward for mental healthcare taught him that. Smeagol, in particular.

All these thoughts fluttered through Bilbo's mind as he stood there, but as he didn't particularly wish to reflect on any of them he only fiddled with his cuff and focused on Thorin.

"I'm a stuffy sort, as you've surmised no doubt, from all my 'damnable' knickknacks. Or whatever rude term you've deemed them," he said. "But honestly, a hair dryer. What other little vanities are you hiding behind your dismissive façade? Next I'm going to find you putting intricate braids in your hair." Not that that would be a bad look on Thorin, the argumentative side of Bilbo's brain pointed out, and would likely be quite attractive.

Of course, Thorin was one of those people with that startlingly attractive quality; he would look good in a sack bag, Primula would say. Then she would add, 'especially if it was nothing but a sack bag' and leer, much to Bilbo's perpetual exasperation.

Not that she was wrong. Thorin wasn't beautiful in the way Glorfindel was—a glossy, supermodel beauty, though Glorfindel's aggressively energetic temperament assuredly did _not_ match—but was beautiful in a sharp, distant manner. Striking, that was the word. Bilbo vaguely wondered if a beard would soften the knife-sharp quality of his face, or make him all the more grim.

He'd undoubtedly look just as good with a beard, at least. Unlike Bilbo, whose hair always grew in slow and thin on his cheeks, when he tried.

"A hair dryer," he said one last time, shaking himself firmly from his thoughts.

Thorin continued to ignore him, or at least he did not hear him. Bilbo sighed and started down the stairs, grimacing as the noise of the TV finally registered, some faux scientist going on about wormholes and time travel. "You're not even watching it," he complained. "Why do you have it on at all? You're reading. _My books_ , may I point out, and a most excellent edition of _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. The accompanying annotations are top notch in the field."

Thorin snapped the book shut and set it aside, on a growing pile of Bilbo's collection of Victorian works. "Biggest collection of classics I've ever seen," he said, so quietly as to be speaking to himself. Probably because he didn't know Bilbo was there.

"You've never been to a library then," Bilbo grumbled. "Or, apparently, an English classroom. Don't let me stop you, go ahead and read Dickens."

A smile flickered across Thorin's face. "I'll have to pick up mine from Dís soon, if she hasn't flung them into the streets by now."

"Yours?" Bilbo asked. "Books? Victorian books?" And if anyone were around to catch the note of disbelief in his voice, well. Bilbo was surely perfectly justified.

Thorin hummed thoughtfully, head tilting back to study the ceiling as though interrogating it for some particular, mysterious answer. Almost haltingly, he said, "It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.'"

"Jane Austen?" Bilbo blurted, staring in astonishment.

Thorin sighed out a long, heavy breath, looking over the two bookshelves of Bilbo's collection he'd kept, then flicked off the lamp beside the bookcase and shuffled around until he was sprawled prone across the couch. 

Bilbo stared after him, still at the bottom of the stairs, rooted to the spot. "You do that on purpose, don't you? You act like you hear me speak just to annoy me. And to rub salt into the wound, you're always utterly contrary to whatever I say. 'Oh, Thorin, enjoy a book instead of that drivel on television,' I suggest, and you _quote Austen at me_ only to toss my things aside and lay on the couch like the metaphorical potato."

Thorin 'I can quote Austen at the drop of a pin' Durinson didn't hear him.

Of course.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter is short. Because it is, I will try to get the next chapter up tonight, or tomorrow at the latest. <3


	5. Resident Friendly Ghost

Bilbo was getting used to things, getting used to _Thorin_.

Thorin worked from home half the week, meaning he was around so much Bilbo hadn't much choice about it.

But Thorin went off somewhere the other half of the week, to work Bilbo presumed, though he hadn't the faintest where architects went on business. To buildings they were … building? Did Thorin have an office? Was he off to meetings? Was he not working at all, but off to see his unruly nephews? Or friends—assuming Thorin's atrocious, brooding temperament allowed him any? Bilbo didn't know, and he was polite enough not to follow him.

He thought that would be going too far. After all, he couldn't really _help_ spying on Thorin without the man's knowledge around the flat, because it was _Bilbo's_ flat and he refused to be driven from his own home. He certainly would never give Lobelia that satisfaction, whether she knew it or not. But he drew the line at stalking Thorin out the door.

He absolutely wouldn't.

No matter how much Bilbo found himself living vicariously through him these days.

Thorin had only been living here a few weeks, and Bilbo felt mildly obsessed. He supposed that was the trouble that came of being intangible and … well, without a life of his own at that precise moment. He might not have had much of an active life before, but at least he'd been _living_.

_Not that he was dead_. He absolutely wasn't, curse it all. (He was going to throw every single one of his books at Gandalf if— _when_ he saw the pest again. Quickly as those books were dwindling.)

Well, that, and Bilbo's curiosity was worse than the proverbial cat's too. So it was only natural to wonder where Thorin went.

He supposed concern for Thorin was inevitable, but still he found it surprising when he was staring out the window at the rain, and fretting.

Thorin was at work. Or wherever he was. Out. Thorin was out, and of course he'd gone on a day that turned out to claim the record for the worst storm of the year.

It was pouring out.

Bilbo uneasily stuck his hand through the window. It was bad enough that his hand could pass through a window at all, but when he wiggled his fingers on the other side, assuring himself his hand was actually out there, he could feel no rain whip against it. He grimaced and pulled his arm back, turned away only to pace impatiently across the room.

Well, Thorin would come home soaked, unless he bought an umbrella on the way home. Bilbo didn't think Thorin was sensible enough to think of it.

Even then, he'd probably end up soaked. He'd probably catch cold. And if his normal temperament was anything to go by, he'd be terrible company when ill.

Bilbo justified his next decision as an act of pure self preservation.

He went into the kitchen and puttered around the pantry, searching for anything simple, and frankly recognizable—what was Thorin's obsession with microwaveable food? And canned food? Didn't he know what "fresh" meant?

But he found cubes of chicken bouillon, and—he shuddered—a box of instant rice, and he knew there were strips of chicken Dís had brought over only the other night, when she decided Bilbo's kitchen was the perfect place to host taco night for the boys. He suspected Dís did it largely because she thought Thorin needed to eat a home-cooked meal at least once a year. Bilbo loved that woman. He felt like she was his ally in some unspoken war against Thorin's terrible taste.

It also meant Bilbo had something edible at least. He could do _something_ , even if he missed proper cooking.

And the ability to eat himself.

He'd have to live vicariously through Thorin where it came to meals too, he supposed.

If the man could ever be bothered to eat a decent meal—barring Dís's interference, which invariably meant her chaotic boys driving Bilbo to distraction, to the point of not paying much mind to the food. Bilbo did not hold out much hope. If it were ever to happen, Bilbo would have to arrange it himself. Somehow.

Another grievance to lay at Gandalf's feet.

It took a great deal of patience, carrying the necessary food from the pantry. He'd never have thought ghosts would get tired, but moving things took energy, a great deal more than carrying things about when his hands could actually lift them. He barely noticed with the little things, in the fits and spurts of fabricating small breezes or moving coasters, but prolonged use was taxing.

Bilbo learned that the hard way when he'd done the shelves for Thorin, having nearly collapsed on the spot for an impromptu nap when he was done. A mildly panicked nap, because he'd yet to feel comfortable drifting off into a doze as a … ghost-like figure. He was never entirely sure he'd wake up as himself, or wake up at all.

So when he had his ingredients lined up he simply stood for a few minutes and surveyed the kitchen.

It almost made him give up.

Thorin had packed away most of Bilbo's cooking implements, keeping only the most basic. There were two pots of Bilbo's previous collection of fifteen (all of which were relevant to basic cooking needs, thank-you). Thorin was so… was _so_ …

Bilbo groaned, pressing his palms over his eyes as took another minute for himself, just to stand there and breathe. Then he strode over to the medium-sized pot—the smaller of the two Thorin had deigned to keep—and made to grab the handle, _willing_ the pot to settle in his grip with all his might. It did. He filled it with water and set it to boil for the rice.

By some miracle when Bilbo collected the leftover strips of grilled chicken from the refrigerator he discovered a bag of sweet onions. He beamed at the onion after he got it on the counter—and oh, if he could have words with Thorin about keeping certain veg in the crisper when it obviously belonged in a bin in the pantry…

Regardless. Bilbo took another slow breath, and then willed one of the knives to pull free from the knife block and got to chopping the onion.

He decided right about then maybe Thorin's penchant for poor food wasn't such a terrible thing, because Bilbo was quickly discovering he never, ever wanted to arrange complex meals while he was like this. Chopping an onion was hard. He didn't want to consider a soufflé or coconut-crusted fish or even a simple glazed spice cake.

If he ever— _when_ he got his corporeality back, he would make Thorin and his family a seven course meal. Just because he could.

Until then, Thorin could eat those dreadful microwavable things. Starting tomorrow. Tonight, he would have a decent soup, or as decent as Bilbo could make considering his limited resources, so he wouldn't come down with a cold.

~*~

Thorin's reaction wasn't what Bilbo was expecting, though perhaps he should've been.

He came in drenched to the bone—or at least straight through to his skin—and displeased with the world at large.

He took one look at the simmering pot of chicken soup—Bilbo lamented the lack of carrots and leeks and turnips and…

And Thorin stared at it in an entirely befuddled manner, standing at the breakfast bar, dripping sploshes of city rain onto the floor.

"What the hell?" Thorin said, voice hoarse, and Bilbo sighed because he already sounded halfway to sick. Then he sighed again because he was thoroughly annoyed: with Thorin for looking a gift horse in the mouth, with himself for not foreseeing this reaction, which was a perfectly obvious one. And if Bilbo were a little less exhausted, he would think it a perfectly reasonable one too, if he were in Thorin's position.

"It's soup," Bilbo said, frowning unhappily, and trying to lean against the table with only limited success. His hip kept slipping an inch or so through it before Bilbo caught himself. "For you, if you can't figure that out. It's not like I can appreciate it."

"It's _soup_ ," Thorin said, stepping closer and staring down at it. His long, black hair fell in wet ropes over the steaming pot, causing droplets of water to fall in.

Bilbo sighed again. "Typical."

"What the hell?" Thorin said again. Then he pulled out his phone and texted someone. Bilbo peered over his shoulder, shoving his little twinge of guilt aside at his eavesdropping. _Did you come over today?_ Thorin typed, and Bilbo saw the contact said Dís.

Lovely, he was texting his sister about Bilbo's pot of soup. Even as Bilbo's annoyance mounted worry wormed into his belly. Of course Thorin would wonder where it'd come from. Of course he would try to find out who'd made it. And what would he do when he couldn't find the culprit?

"You better not throw it out," Bilbo muttered sullenly. "That took me ages, and barring your poor selection of ingredients, it will be quite good, and quite good for you too."

Thorin ignored him. Of course.

Bilbo was too tired and annoyed to wonder whether Thorin could ignore him if he didn't know Bilbo was there.

Thorin's phone chimed, and Bilbo saw Dís text, _What daft thing are you on about now?_

_Forget it_ , he texted back before shoving his phone back into his pocket.

He glared at the soup as if it'd done something heinous. "Mr. Green," he muttered, and stomped toward the door.

Bilbo stared at his retreating back, suddenly a little more awake and entirely aghast. "Oh no."

He quickly followed. "Stop being foolish," he told Thorin's back, and got the front door slammed in his face for his efforts. He winced as if the door had actually hit him, though of course it hadn't. Thorin might not know he was there, and Bilbo might not feel the door, but somehow it still hurt, deep down in the pit of his stomach. He walked through the barrier, as ever ignoring the disconcerting way he didn't feel a thing, and trailed after the angry, dripping six-foot-something idiot.

"You _are_ being daft," he said to Thorin's back, as if Dís's words would bring Thorin closer to hearing him. Thorin pressed impatiently for the lift.

"Who the hell does that?" Thorin snapped, apparently to the lift door, though Bilbo brightened just a little, feeling like Thorin was talking to him. "Breaks into someone's flat to make _soup_?"

"I did _not_ break in. It's _my_ flat. And someone kind, did you ever think of that?"

"It's illegal," he growled.

"It's not if nobody broke in," Bilbo said. "You're such a troublesome bloke. Couldn't you accept something nice without beating it to death with your atrocious temper?"

"Just because Green has keys doesn't mean he has the authority or right to charge into other tenants' flats." He jabbed the lift button again and then whirled for the stairs, too much in a hurry to wait.

Bilbo stomped after him. "It wasn't Holman, so you can stop your snit this instant."

"I'm not overreacting," Thorin said, skipping down the stairs three at a time. Bilbo had to scurry to keep up, and incorporeal or not, he was panting by the time he chased Thorin to Holman's doorway.

"It's soup! If that's not an overreaction, I shouldn't know what is!" Bilbo cried at his back, and he threw himself forward _through_ Thorin to stand between him and Holman's door, as if that would do any good. He shivered at his temper driving him to walk straight through another person. Not that he hadn't before, but those had all been accidents, and Bilbo wasn't comfortable walking through inanimate things, never mind living beings. The thought of merging his atoms with someone else's… Well, there was something deeply unsettling about it.

Thorin pounded on Holman's door, three loud booms, his fist swinging up and toward Bilbo. Despite the instinct to move out of the way, Bilbo couldn't dodge before Thorin's fist knocked through Bilbo's head, like he was nothing more than a fog Thorin's hand was punching through.

He shuddered and glared at Thorin, half out of his own disquiet at walking through the man, but half out of the annoyance Thorin's overreaction had been teasing up into anger.

"Do not yell at Holman," Bilbo snapped. "He won't understand why, because he didn't do it. It was me, Bilbo Baggins! Your resident friendly ghost! And besides that, it was a kindness. It is not some … some … _plot_ to upset you.

"And even if Holman had done it, you gave him a very expensive bottle of wine, and it is _pouring_ outside like Thor's dumped a bucket of ice water over the city, and maybe it was _just_. _kindness_."

Thorin's face slowly cleared as Bilbo ranted, shifting from furious to annoyed, and annoyed to confused. He shivered and looked uncertain, and stared at the door—at _Bilbo_ —like it was a Sphinx offering a riddle, and Bilbo felt the energy sap from him as if he was a balloon and someone had taken a needle to him.

"I'm tired," he complained to Thorin's softening gaze, as though Thorin could see him even when Bilbo knew he couldn't. "And you're freezing, standing here in the hall, dripping ice water everywhere and ready to go at it like a madman. You're certain to catch cold at this rate."

Thorin sighed and slumped, leaning his weight against Holman's door, pushing up so close into Bilbo's personal space Bilbo could just see the darker flecks of blue in his icy eyes. Which was naturally when Holman decided to answer and the door swung abruptly open. The two men stared at each other, through Bilbo, who stood unseen between them. Bilbo cringed from the sensation, and ducked past Thorin to stand behind him.

"Mr. Durinson?" Holman sounded surprised, but he scanned the space around Thorin like he was looking for someone else. He opened the door wider. "Is something the matter?"

"I…" Thorin worked his shoulders, rolling them as though to relieve tension, then he heaved a great sigh and dragged his hands through his wet, knotted hair, pushing the strands back away from his face. Bilbo had the most perverse desire to gather the black mass up into a ponytail for him. He stared at the back of Thorin's head, shocked to freezing, and tried to squash the ridiculous urge into nothingness.

"Don't come into my flat without my permission," Thorin finally said, but his voice was blank of anger, or any emotion at all, and he didn't wait to hear Holman's response, didn't even see the look of befuddlement—and annoyance and curiosity; Bilbo knew his friend well—cross his face.

Bilbo stood with Holman and watched Thorin storm back to the stairwell, looking as thunderous as the actual storm outside the building.

"I'm sorry, Holman," Bilbo said, sighing. "He's a good sort. I misjudged his reaction. He's a bit… Well. A bit on the grumpy side. But also good."

Holman cocked his head, eyes glued to where Thorin had disappeared. He huffed, shook his head, and his mouth curled up into the tiniest of smiles.

"Hol?" Hamfast's head ducked around the door. "What on Earth..?"

"It was Mr. Durinson. Peculiar, he was," Holman said.

Hamfast scrunched his nose, and Bilbo wanted to tell the lad doing so made him look twelve instead of the proper twenty-four he was. "Don't mind him, Hol. He's a perfect arse. Never met a man so rude in my life! Even Otho's politer, and he can be mean as that wife of his."

Holman hummed noncommittally.

"Everyone says so. What'd he want anyway?" Hamfast added, glancing between Holman and the empty hall, but he kept on before Holman could answer. "Did you hear he snubbed Mrs. Bolger in the lift the other day? And he's never greeted a single person in the building—"

"Don't think it's his way. Not that any of us have been eager to meet him either." Holman's shoulder lifted in a shrug. "Peculiar fellow, didn't I say? But… I think Bilbo'd approve of that one."

"Approve?" Hamfast sounded appalled. "He's in cahoots with Lobelia. Stole Mr. Bilbo's flat right out from under his nose, as if anyone 'round here thinks he's dead. And what will Mr. Bilbo do when he gets back from… wherever he's gone?"

"Oh, get off with you." Holman sighed, and elbowed Hamfast back into the flat, no doubt to finish one of their many family dinners; Hamfast and Belle lived down on the first floor, and the cousins often shared meals.

"I don't know how I feel about that," Bilbo told his friend. "Any of it. Like Thorin? I do no such thing! Nonsense." He paused. "I'm glad to know you hold out hope for me though, Hol. I'm hanging on. Trying to."

Holman shook his head and stepped back into his flat. "Ah well. Goodnight Mr. Thorin. And Bilbo, wherever you've gotten off to."

_As if I'm a misbehaving toddler_ , Bilbo thought and rolled his eyes. But he smiled all the way back to Bag-End. (Which it remained, whether Thorin respected the Baggins sign or not.)

When he slipped into the flat he found Thorin coming down from the second floor in nothing but sweatpants, hair freshly wet and dripping anew. He felt heat flush up his neck and averted his eyes. "I never!" he cried, and stared intently at his own ceiling, trying to scald the sight of a flat stomach and hairy chest and faint, white scars from his mind.

None of it was any of his business. None at all.

He would _not_ gawp at Thorin's body. Bilbo was not that sort of man, dead or alive. "You could at least _dress_ before you go running around the place," he griped in lieu of letting himself think about it.

But he was pleased Thorin had showered—a bath would have been better, offering a nice long, hot soak to battle against the cold that must have seeped down into Thorin's bones by now, but some people simply could not be told—and he was even more pleased when he followed Thorin into the kitchen despite himself and found him pouring the simmering soup into a bowl.

"Good show," he said, smiling brightly, and if he imagined a little smile growing on Thorin's face at his words—or perhaps the scent of the soup—well, it was a comfort to him to believe it was really there.

Even if he knew it meant he was going absolutely mad.

Mad as that dratted Gandalf even.

But he sat with Thorin through the meal, grinning like a fool at Thorin's obvious enjoyment. Perhaps he could occasionally cook a few other things, here and there, so long as he was discreet and the recipe uncomplicated. Scones, perhaps. Thorin liked scones; he'd bought them fresh from a bakery every weekend since he moved in, and he kept jam and Devonshire cream on hand.

Bilbo would make scones, in a week or so. Perhaps when Thorin's sweet-faced little nightmares next came to visit. That would give Bilbo enough time to recuperate before he planned another session in the kitchen.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr! (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	6. Perfect Stranger

"No," Bilbo moaned. "No, no, no, no, _no_."

Thorin obliviously kept on up the stairs, flattened boxes tucked under his arm.

"Don't you _dare_." Bilbo trailed after him, practically on Thorin's heels. " _No_."

Thorin turned into the office.

"It's my study," Bilbo wailed.

Thorin pulled a few books off the shelf, barely glancing at their spines.

"It's _sacred_."

Thorin's hand stilled on one book. Bilbo stilled in turn, swallowing thickly, hoping beyond hope that Thorin was responding to him on some level. Then Thorin stroked his fingers lightly over the title of the book, his focus entirely on the cover, and the tension drained out of Bilbo like a punctured balloon.

He wished Thorin would stop toying with his mind like that. Not that Thorin realized it, but _really_ , how many times would it take before Bilbo accepted Thorin couldn't hear him no matter what Bilbo said, or what Thorin did?

Because of course Thorin wasn't reacting to Bilbo, or at least not Bilbo's spoken words. He was reacting to the book in his hands, a simple, plain brown journal with nothing but 'Bilbo Baggins, #14' written in neat scroll across the cover. Bilbo's journal, the fourteenth one since Bilbo had begun keeping a diary of his day-to-day life when he was nine.

"That's private," he said, without any real heat at all. Bilbo didn't know if Thorin even planned to read it.

Which was the moment, naturally, when Thorin stood from his crouch in front of the bookcase and settled into one of the chairs in the middle of the room, journal in hand.

"There's a more recent one in the top left drawer of my desk," Bilbo advised, surprised at how little he minded Thorin's nosy perusal. He really was getting used to the man. He tried to remember what year number fourteen would have covered. He should have labeled the journals with years as well as their volumes. Well, hindsight was perfect and all that.

Thorin paused his quick rifling near the end of the book, catching the pages and smoothing them open. Bilbo stepped toward him, caught by the suddenly grim expression on Thorin's face.

There was only one short question on an otherwise blank page. There wasn't even a date. Bilbo didn't need one to remember that day.

> _Why them?_

Bilbo stumbled back, scalded, until the dim sense of a bookcase at his back registered in his mind. He didn't feel pieces of furniture physically, but some little mental sense pinged at the back of his mind, telling him to stop, though right now he dearly wished not to. He'd rather keep stepping back until he tipped off the edge of the world.

Journal #14 was that year. Of all the volumes for Thorin to pick out, why _that_ year? He watched as Thorin traced his fingers over the words, again and again, like he thought if he traced them enough he could understand them, imbue their meaning.

"That's… that's most certainly private," he said, shaky, and suddenly he couldn't remember why he didn't mind this perfect stranger pawing through his things.

Thorin turned the page, and the news article slipped out. Bilbo barely remembered putting it there. He couldn't stand it, couldn't stand even looking at it, and fled the room even as he heard the crinkling whisper of Thorin picking it up.

He was downstairs before he fully realized he was moving, and propelled himself to a stop by the kitchen door. The kitchen. It had always been a place of comfort for him. Upset? Make a cup of tea. Worried? Bake a batch of cookies. Angry? Make a five course meal.

Bilbo learned that from his mother, who'd never been good at sitting still like his father. Belladonna had been pure energy, caught like lightning in a bottle. Bungo had been stillness. Even his anger had been still and calm. Bilbo had learned savoring tea through the tempest of a problem from his father.

Bilbo skittered back from the kitchen door and banished those memories away from him.

He paced the living room a good fifteen minutes, stalking from one corner to the next and the next—past the last two surviving bookcases, past the windows, past the television and kitchen and entry hall—until he 'd arrive back full circle at the bottom of the stairs. Every time he'd pause and stare apprehensively up at the study door, but it never opened.

But he couldn't go back upstairs, he _couldn't_. That journal, that year, with that article and that pain. He couldn't.

Only, Thorin never came back down.

Bilbo paced the room again, stopped at the foot of the stair, stared, paced. He most certainly did not think about anything regarding… regarding his parents, or his final year at university, or automobiles.

If he'd been at all himself—if he'd been _corporeal_ —he would have a sit down and a hot cup of tea. Perhaps an entire pot. As it was, when the overwhelming panic subsided back down into the small, tight ball of hurt in his stomach it usually was, he felt brave enough to tiptoe back up to the second floor.

When he stuck his head through the study door, he found Thorin still sitting in the chair, Bilbo's journal open on his lap. Only it was open at the start, and Thorin was intently focused, and looked especially brooding—a remarkable feat for the painfully stoic man, in Bilbo's opinion—with a little vee of a frown on his brow.

Earlier Thorin had been at ease enough to the point of giving little smiles at nothing in particular.

Bilbo tentatively shifted closer, sneaking around the chair in a wide radius, as though he might disturb Thorin's reading. Or as though his own journal might leap out and catch him by the throat.

But when he peered over Thorin's shoulder down at his own words, written nearly a decade ago, a perfectly unmemorable October day stared back at him: one of classes, working on his thesis, and his advisor making another poorly executed pass at him. Graduate school had been like that, an endless parade of demanding classes and questionable social life, what little time he had for one at any rate. Utterly unremarkable, until the end, when his parents came to collect him for a celebratory summer.

The panic welled up in Bilbo's stomach, but he dug his fingers into his palms, bit the inside of his cheek, and choked the feeling back down.

"I can't decide if this is better than your clearing out my books or not," he told the back of Thorin's head, and watched as Thorin turned the page.

~*~

It was a journal, that was obvious the moment Thorin pulled it from the shelf and saw Bilbo Baggins written in cartoonish calligraphy across the otherwise plain cover. Volume fourteen. Dr. Baggins had at least _fourteen_ journals filled with the detritus of his life. Who wrote down their life in such exact, extensive detail?

It was one more question to add to the growing list in Thorin's mind. He wasn't ashamed to admit he was curious about who Bilbo Baggins had been, and the more he learned, the more curious he became.

Who died without anyone caring enough to bother with his belongings? How did Mr. Green care to the point of hating his new tenant—hating Thorin, at any rate, for no reason Thorin could guess, beyond living in his flat—but no one else did? Why didn't his family care, like Mrs. Sackville-Baggins? Thorin had called her a week ago about Baggins's property and had yet to hear back from her.

Who collected books to the point of being a fire hazard? Or had a flat so filled to the brim with memories Thorin felt their weight crashing down on him at every turn? Whose personality so filled their belongings Thorin felt … _haunted_ , as though he could look up at any moment to find Bilbo Baggins watching him? (There would be a critical, disapproving twist to his lips as Thorin packed up books and appliances, or a fleeting smile when those exasperatingly numerous plants were hauled away by Mr. Green. A laugh when Kíli stole fry after fry off Fíli's plate.)

Who had hobbies as expansive as cooking and reading and gardening, and now _writing_ too, all enough to fill a lifetime to overflowing? On top of earning a doctorate?

How did someone live so much and yet apparently had the love of so few?

How could he die without anyone caring?

So Thorin set aside his evening plans of packing up the books in the study—more books, an endless sea of them—and settled in one of the wingback chairs, wanting to discover something that would shed a little more light on this mysterious life.

And then the journal was full of such inanities Thorin could not hold still. Page after page of tiny, cramped writing, filling every corner of every page. He began flipping through the pages faster, impatient, bored until,

_Why them?_

One question, two words that could mean anything, surrounded by the stark white of an otherwise empty page. So different, it leapt off the page like a scream.

_Why them?_

Thorin stared at it, inexplicably hit by those two words. The air around him felt dry and close, and suddenly excruciatingly empty, as though the very memories floating in the air of this flat wanted nothing to do with those words.

When he flipped the page the journal still stared up at him with accusingly empty pages, but a yellowed newspaper clipping slid out into his lap.

> _Married couple dead in accident, collision with lorry,  
>  (22 April, 2004)_

Four had been in the accident, two died. The truck had swiped the driver side of the car, and they'd never stood a chance, Bungo and Belladonna Baggins, who'd been collecting their son from university. 'The son' had been injured—the article didn't say how severely—and the lorry driver walked away without a scratch.

He read the article—a frustratingly sparse thing—a dozen times, an urgency building in the base of his spine he could not explain or begin to define. Then he turned the pages in the journal, but the rest of it remained blank. No more words, no more articles, nothing to hint at Bilbo's wellbeing.

So he did the only thing he could think to do. He flipped back to the start of the journal and began reading with more care. It suddenly struck as much more interesting.

Bilbo's entries—for all that they were mundane and even more pretentious, a vibe Thorin got about Bilbo Baggins in general—were clever, forever referencing literary and historical works. For every reference Thorin noted, he suspected he missed five more. It didn't take long for Thorin to work out Bilbo's doctorate was in history, no doubt with another degree in literature tucked away somewhere.

It started to explain Bilbo's expansive collection of books, at any rate.

Reading the journal was strangely calming, despite the dark, tight confines of the study. The air slowly melted back into something breathable, like the flat itself was calming down into its regular rhythm.

And it made Thorin wonder all over what had happened to the man in these words. How had he died? Was it an accident? Suicide? So many entries hinted at an underlying melancholy, and these were written months before the car accident in the newspaper article, so Thorin knew they weren't related.

His mind fancifully supplied the thought of murder, and that was about when Thorin knew he should stop reading and go to bed. And as stood up to go, absently searching for a bookmark, he even wondered if Bilbo was alive somewhere. Perhaps he'd run off. Had he disappeared into the Alps, off chasing his own Frankenstein? Had he been whisked away by faeries or a meddling wizard?

And naturally, there was no bookmark to be found. A roomful—a flat full!—of books and not a bookmark in the place.

Thorin sighed, closed the journal with nothing more than his finger caught in the pages to mark his place, and stepped over to the desk, rifling through the letters piled haphazardly over the ledger there before finding a small slip of notepaper. It was as good a bookmark as anything.

He quickly checked to make sure it was nothing important. Nothing Sackville-Baggins would want, should she ever bother to return his call. It was nothing more than a note, something Thorin barely registered before the postscript caught his attention. In long, sharp cursive, it read:

> _I suppose you shall be as obstinate as your father… Don't worry about the side-effects, they will wear away when you find what you're hiding from._

Thorin paused over the postscript, and reread the full note just to be sure, but it made no more sense than the first go. What the hell was it supposed to mean? Side-effects of what? 'They will wear away when you find what you're hiding from'? He scowled at it. Was this Grey guy mad?

He stuffed the slip of paper into the journal—nothing so ridiculous could be that important—and headed to bed, muttering about barmy letters as he went. He set aside the thought that Grey had known Bilbo's parents, and Bilbo himself. As curious as Thorin was, it wasn't like he knew where to find Grey, and he wasn't about to go around harassing Bilbo's acquaintances.

Besides, Grey was clearly mad.

It was better than thinking about Bilbo Baggins, or his absent family, or how Thorin was starting to miss a man who wasn't there.

One he would never meet.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr! (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	7. Family

It took Thorin a good four weeks to get around to the guest room, and now that he had... well. The less said of it, the better, in Bilbo's opinion. On Wednesday Thorin removed every last scrap from the room, from the bed all the way down to the last book. On Thursday he went out to meet his sister and nephews and came home with a dozen bags of mysterious goods, not the least of which was paint. Dark, riotous colors of paint.

On Friday a troop of delivery men hauled in one piece of furniture after another, some assembled, some in boxes. A bunk bed. Two desks. Two rugs. A dresser. Shelves. (Not floating shelves, to Bilbo's relief.)

Saturday dawned and Dís dropped off Fíli and Kíli bright and early with a positively evil gleam in her eye. "Good luck," she said cheerfully as she nearly shoved her boys at Thorin before turning tail and running. Diabolical woman. Bilbo didn't know if he admired her or resented her for abandoning him and his flat to Thorin and her sons.

This was the first time the boys were visiting since Bilbo resolved to bake something for them, but he hadn't managed to get it done. He'd been too frazzled by the latest, scarring upheavals.

It wasn't that Bilbo had been married to his guest room. It was, after all, a guest room. But half of those books Thorin had shoved into boxes had been his little cousin Drogo's. Drogo had left them with Bilbo when he'd gone off to uni and his parents had threatened to do away with all his things if he didn't clean some of it out. A week later, Drogo had half his belongings stored at Bilbo's until he could sort it, which had slowly dwindled down to the remaining collection of childhood books.

The dresser and wardrobe set had been Bilbo's grandparents'. And his mother's glory box had sat at the end of the bed, keeping sundry family heirlooms safe. Mostly photo albums, as Bilbo recalled.

Granted, Thorin had put the glory box up in the study at least. But still.

_Still._

The boys flung themselves at Thorin as soon as he answered the door—as they always seemed to do upon arrival—and started shouting, "Ori's coming, right? You called Ori, you promised!" Thorin shoved them off, rolling his eyes.

"It's not eight yet, boys. They'll not be here for an hour. I'm stunned Dís dragged the lot of you from bed at the crack of dawn."

"It wasn't _dawn_ ," Kíli protested, but the way Fíli groaned said it was early enough, thank-you and no thanks.

Bilbo smiled despite the churning in his stomach that told him he was about to live his worst nightmare. He wished he'd found time to make those scones, if only to see the boys enjoy them. And it might have distracted them from whatever planned mayhem was in store.

Then Thorin had the gall to say, "So are you two ready to paint your room?"

"Any way we want?" Fíli asked, suddenly perking up from his morning gloom with a grin eerily reminiscent of his mother. They were most certainly related. Bilbo suppressed a shiver.

"Any way you want," Thorin agreed. "No holds barred." The boys whooped and shrieked and started shouting about scribbling all over the walls with all the paint they'd bought. Bilbo recalled the collected cans of clashing colors and winced, shooting Thorin a look of betrayal.

Hours later, Bilbo dragged himself after the three children. Ori, a quiet, bookish looking lad, had arrived with his two guardians, Nori and Dori, though Bilbo had not yet worked out their relation. Brothers perhaps? Cousins? Another set of uncles? None of the adults seemed inclined to look after the lads, so Bilbo took it upon himself to keep an eye on them when they were on their own. He couldn't stop them from doing anything foolish, but if he was pressed he was sure he could prevent any terrible accident.

Later, in hindsight, he'd realized that hadn't been his best decision in life. Watching the slow and colorful destruction of his guest room was a peculiar, slow torture. He was quite amazed no one had heard him moaning and muttering under his breath throughout the day.

~*~

When Thorin answered the incessant ringing of his doorbell, he was unsurprised to find Nori leaning on it unrepentantly. Typically it was the kid who did that sort of thing, but Ori stood shyly at Dori's side, his ever present book bag clutched tightly in hands outfitted with his ever-present knitted half-mittens. It could be the height of summer, and Thorin knew Ori would tote around his mittens. He also knew Ori could know Thorin for a hundred years and the lad would still stare at him with wide, nervous eyes.

"The boys are in their room, Ori," he said and nodded his head over his shoulder. "The door at the foot of the stairs." A smile flitted across Ori's face, lighting his brown eyes briefly into something cheerier, and he edged past and dashed down the hall, all without a word.

Nori, the perpetual child of the three, smirked and stood from his slouch against the bell. He flicked his single long braid over his shoulder, redder than a fire engine and longer than Thorin's hair, falling all the way down to his waist. "'bout time, Thor. Thought you got lost in there for a minute."

"Thorin," he corrected uselessly. "For the last time, I'm not some Norse god of old, Nori."

"Could be a superhero though." Nori ducked past Thorin and sauntered down the hall.

"Ignore him," Dori said, rolling his eyes, looking elegant and put-together despite the gesture, with his trim grey beard and crisply ironed button-up. "It's good to see you, Thorin. You're looking well. After all the stories Dís's been telling about your time in New York, I thought you'd come back a zombie, or worse."

"Americanized?" Thorin asked, lips quirking. He moved back so Dori could step through, and nodded down the short entry hall.

"Don't be cute," Dori said. He looked around, eyes noting every detail of the living room. "Didn't know your sudden popularity was paying so well."

"Wait until the kitchen," Thorin said, and ignored the way Dori's eyebrows shot up. "And it's not, this was at a discount."

"What, somebody die here?" Nori was smirking as he slid out from where he'd vanished into the kitchen, and then his smile melted away when Thorin didn't respond. Thorin knew his shoulders had gone rigid. He knew he was glaring like a proper arse. He couldn't help himself.

In truth, the idea of Bilbo Baggins dying had gotten under Thorin's skin the last few weeks, and he didn't know why. Maybe it was the way no one cared, one apartment handyman aside. Not his neighbors, not his family. And Thorin, a complete stranger to Dr. Baggins, was left to pack away the pieces of his life.

"The last tenant," he said shortly, trying to shrug the sudden morose feeling away. "Dr. Baggins. Bilbo Baggins. Let's go through to the kitchen so Dori can have a thrill, shall we?"

"He'll have an aneurysm," Nori said, but obligingly shoved the swinging door open again. Dori made a choking sound at the sight of the tiled floor and marble counters he could already glimpse. He elbowed Dori as his brother passed. "If you clock anything you want, Dor, say the word and I'll smuggle it out of here." From the way he laughed when Dori punched him in the shoulder Nori found the joke worth the pain; Thorin knew how hard Dori could punch, and it was rarely worth it.

"Thorin mentions one missing thing from his place," Dori snapped, "and I'll have your hair for floss, Nori. One. Single. Thing."

"That's what happened last time I'd 'shaved' my head," Nori said conversationally. "Sheered it right off, he did, while I was sleeping. Hung it on the fridge like some goddamn trophy."

"Every day I thank God I'm not related to the pair of you," Thorin said drily.

"I've brought sandwiches for later, and that peach tea you like," Dori said, ignoring the remark. "Now which one of us is on child duty, and which of us is throwing the furniture together?"

"The boys are painting," Thorin said. Before Dori's horrified look had the time to morph into a speech, he elaborated, "They're under strict orders to only paint the walls, the floor is covered, the windows are open for the fumes, and they're to come out every fifteen minutes to boast about their progress, or I'm coming in to get them."

"It's going to look hideous," Dori warned, but his shoulders sank back down from their righteous heights.

"It's their room," Thorin shrugged. "When they hate it, we'll paint it again."

"And Ori'll rein them in," Nori said. "No doubt he's in there right now, organizing a proper design. We'll go in to find regimented lines of color striping the walls in neat order and exact width."

Dori hit him on the back of his head. "At least one of my little brothers has sense. You couldn't organize your way out of a paper bag. Go put the tea on."

"Could if I was being hounded by the police. Or you," Nori said, undoubtedly just to get a rise from Dori. But he'd stepped toward the kettle to start the water.

Thorin rolled his eyes. They were worse than Dís. Or Dwalin. Or Fíli and Kíli. It didn't bear consideration.

"So tell us of your Mr. Baggins," Nori said.

"Doctor," Thorin corrected. "And he's not my anything." He pretended not to see the way Dori and Nori exchanged looks. That didn't bear consideration either. They were worse than a pair of meddlesome gossips.

"This Dr. Baggins then," Dori said.

"He died, I moved in," he said. "That's the long and short of it."

"What's the longer version?" Dori asked, and he had a resigned quality to his voice Thorin would bet came from asking Nori the same question every time he got into trouble. Thorin wasn't in trouble, and he didn't appreciate the prying.

"This place must go for a bundle," Nori said before Thorin could work up a protest. "It's hard to guess why it'd be cheap, death or not. How much are you paying for it?"

"A private renter's bill, thanks," Thorin said sharply. "Keep to your own business, Nori."

"Alright," Dori said, halting in his excavation of the tote bag he'd brought with. "What's got your temper in a flare? Have the boys broken your calm so early in the day? Because if they have, you've got a long haul in front of you."

"And us stuck with you," Nori muttered, and turned his attention to the kettle when Dori shot him a look.

Thorin hesitated, the words "fuck off" thick on his tongue, but one look at Dori's displeased face had him strangling the words back down, shoulders slumping. "I had a call this morning, bright and fucking early at _five_."

"Language," Dori said sharply.

"There's kids present," Nori said, and if his words could waltz around with a smirk on their faces, they would. "Two whole rooms away. They might hear such foul talk on the wind and pick it up through osmosis."

"Nori," Dori said, voice still filled with warning.

"It's not like they've not heard it on the playground and in the school halls already. Or from any one of the family. God knows we're not exactly the cleanest cut bunch in the world."

"Not for lack of trying," Dori said. He turned back to Thorin, pinning him with a look. "You were saying, a call? And keep it polite."

Thorin crossed his arms and stared back just as fiercely.

"You might as well give up the ghost and tell us now, snits aside," Nori said. "Dori'll nag until the proverbial cows come home if you don't."

"As I told you, the last tenant died here. Or I guess the last owner? His relative took over the flat, an unpleasant woman named Sackville-Baggins. I called her some weeks ago about collecting some of his things. They were family after all.

"It took her over three weeks and two messages from me to call back, and you know what she tells me? She doesn't care. Throw it out, it's a bunch of junk." It infuriated him. "They were _family_. Family's supposed to care when you fucking—"

"Language," Dori snapped.

"—die," Thorin finished, ignoring him. "There are journals and letters, photo albums and piles of things here, and apparently no one wants any of it. _Any_ memories from this man's life? For god's sake, his clothes were still hanging in his closet and she was parading prospective renters in and out for weeks before me. Like it doesn't matter. I'm a perfect stranger and _I_ care more about what Bilbo would want done with his things than anyone else seems to."

He didn't know when he'd begun pacing, but when he finished his rant he found himself at the kitchen bar, fingers digging into the speckled marble, glaring furiously at Nori and Dori across the counter, as if they'd told him to throw Bilbo's things out themselves.

"…Dori, I think he's upset." And just like that, Nori's sarcastic tone snapped Thorin out of his tantrum.

He groaned and collapsed against the marble, leaning his elbows against the counter and hiding his face in his hands. "This is fucking ridiculous."

"For the last time, _language_ ," Dori leaned forward and grabbed Thorin's wrist. Voice much more compassionate, he said, "It's not ridiculous."

"No, it's insane," Thorin muttered.

"It's sweet, when it comes down to it," Dori said firmly. "Everyone deserves someone caring about them, even when they're dead and beyond caring. People are important, Thorin. Every one of us. I'm glad there's someone looking out for this Dr. Baggins's—"

"I think we're calling him 'Bilbo' now," Nori said, and they both ignored him.

"—interests, if his family can't be bothered. I'm glad it's someone like you, who isn't put off by some people's unpleasantness."

"I don't even know how he died," Thorin said, voice muffled in his palms, before he sighed and looked up, propping his chin on one hand instead. "Or how that could have made his place so cheap. Or what to do with his things. I've got most of it in storage, but that's hardly a long term solution."

"One thing at a time," Dori advised. He squeezed Thorin's wrist and let go, going back to hauling out a veritable picnic from his tote. "Today we'll get the boys' room sorted. You'll enjoy a home cooked meal—"

"Not sure a sandwich counts as 'home cooked,'" Nori muttered, still ignored by both of them.

"—and we'll see what can be done about this entire situation."

"You say that like you've got a clue," Nori complained, and didn't flinch at the way Dori jammed an elbow into his ribs. He had to be used to the pain, Thorin mused. Or had ribs of steel. Dori didn't lack for strength.

"We can research the apartment, for starters," Dori said. "Get estimates. Find out if anything else is going on with the place."

"Structurally, it's fine. More than fine," Thorin said. "I've studied this building. Nor would I live anywhere less than stellar."

"Then there's Mastermind Nori, at your service." Nori winked at Thorin. "I can take a look into the background of the owner, Sackville, wasn't it?"

"Sackville-Baggins," Thorin said.

"And work my magic on the death of Bilbo Baggins," he added.

"Nothing illegal," Dori said.

"Would I?"

"Nori, I mean it. I don't want the police knocking down my door at three in the morning again."

"That was ages ago."

"Last month is not 'ages ago,'" Dori said.

They fell to bickering quickly after that, and Thorin sat and watched them, smiling at their antics and letting the fury of Mrs. Sackville-Baggins's call melt out of his bones.

It wasn't until the boys came running in, shrieking to high hell—Ori included, somehow Fíli and Kíli brought it out of him—and shouting about how their masterwork with the blue paint was almost done that they all moved out of the kitchen and toward the unassembled furniture in the living room.

Thorin almost dreaded to think it, piece after piece of furniture that required assembly.

No doubt Bilbo—and Nori was right, _when_ had Thorin begun calling Bilbo Baggins 'Bilbo'?—would have a fit at the sight of his flat in the hands of Thorin's boys. He almost laughed at the thought of it, a staid, fussy Bilbo watching Thorin nephews run rampant through his flat.

~*~

Bilbo was done.

He was done with it all. Done with his flat. Done with the boys. Done with supervising. Done with Thorin especially, who'd brought this all down on him.

He lay out on balcony floor, not the least bit concerned someone could come walk on him—through him—halfheartedly trying not to listen to the bickering chatter through the open balcony door.

"We should've assembled the bunk bed in the fu—"

"Nori!"

"In the fun bedroom," Nori said.

"Fun," Kíli's voice rang out, full of skepticism. Last Bilbo saw of the boys, they were trying to help the three adults construct the piles of unassembled furniture, after they had finished the last touches of their paintwork.

Bilbo himself had collapsed in the sole armchair in the living room, regretting his decision to ever babysit children who had cans of paint and a supply of brushes in their possession. He was exhausted, at least emotionally.

However, after the repeated indignity of having both Thorin and Nori toss tools on the chair, and subsequently through Bilbo, he'd retired to the balcony, determined to ignore everyone for the rest of his miserable existence.

"Fun," Nori asserted loudly from the living room. "Your room's ten times more fun than Thor's, am I right?" When the boys cheered in agreement, he added, "You know what'd make your room even better? How about some sketches on the bed footboards? Maybe some swashbuckling swords—"

" _No_ ," Dori said, voice rising in outrage, even as the boys shouted,

"Yeah!"

Bilbo snorted to himself.

"If you can't get the ladder attached," Dori said primly, "Go do something else and stop making trouble with inappropriate suggestions."

"But we like swords," Fíli protested.

"It's not my fault the ladder doesn't attach the way it's supposed to," Nori muttered.

"It does, if you'd just read the instruction manual like a normal person," Dori returned.

"The _instruction manual_ ," Thorin's voice rang out, spitting the words like a curse, "Is wrong." There was a thump and then the distinct clank of some tool or another being tossed—likely toward the chair, and missing abysmally.

Perhaps, Bilbo thought irritably, they would have better luck putting things together if they'd not emptied all the boxes into messy piles at the start and gone box by box instead. Unless Bilbo missed his mark, Dori had probably tried to tell them as much, but Nori and Thorin seemed to prefer bulling ahead in their projects instead of using common sense.

Thorin muttered something and heavy footsteps clomped toward Bilbo. He cracked his eyes open in time to catch Thorin's silhouette neatly stepping over Bilbo's crossed ankles to lean against the railing. A shiver belatedly shuddered through him at the notion of being stepped on—through.

Except Thorin _should_ have stepped through him. Bilbo was entirely in his way, stretched across the floor. Why had Thorin stepped _over_ him?

"That's really very annoying," Bilbo complained at him, still not moving an inch from his spot. "Acting like you know I'm here when you don't. It's rude. Terribly rude. Dreadfully."

"Fucking bed," Thorin griped under his breath, then glanced back at the open door. "Fí, hit the door, would you."

Bilbo frowned, annoyance spiking through him, and tilted his head away from Thorin to watch Fíli stand from where he was sorting through a pile of screws—for the as yet unassembled bookcase—and kick the door closed. He flinched.

"My _door_ ," he said, to Fíli or Thorin or the Greek gods. Or just himself, since no one responded. "He gets that from you, doesn't he? Rudeness."

"There is no way it fits together. I am going to ream out that charlatan company," he muttered. Bilbo rolled his eyes.

"You're an architect. Aren't you supposed to be good at putting things together?"

"There are three damn pieces missing," Thorin said. "Or more. Who the fuck knows."

"They're not _missing_ ," Bilbo snapped. "You've got so many projects mixed up on that floor it's amazing anything's finished at all. Half the bits and pieces have probably rolled way under the couch as we speak."

Thorin sighed, tugging his hair out of its usual ponytail to drag his fingers through the stands. "They've got to be in there somewhere."

"Stop pretending to hear me!" Bilbo cried, leaning up on his elbows to glare at him.

Then the door cracked open, Nori's head popping out. "Thor, going to spend all evening out here?"

"I'm taking a break," Thorin said.

"Sooner we get it done, the sooner Dori will stop smiling smugly at us every time he gets something slotted together," Nori advised, a distinctly irritable note to his voice. "Who are you talking to anyway?"

Thorin tensed. "Do you see anyone else out here?"

"Obviously not."

"Then obviously no one," he grunted. "I'll be back in a minute."

Nori studied Thorin's back for a moment longer, a thoughtful look on his face, before disappearing back into the apartment. Bilbo grumbled to himself and settled back against the floor, indefinably irritated with the entire world. Especially Thorin.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr! (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	8. Possibly Deadly Bakery

Bilbo didn't know what Thorin, Nori, and Dori discussed while he'd been supervising the children—and why had _Bilbo_ been left to supervision a group of lads that weren't his, particularly when no one knew he was there to do any supervising at all? How irresponsible were the lot of them? Honestly!

Regardless, whatever the three had spoken about, it caused Nori and Dori to give Thorin thoughtful, vaguely concerned looks through the rest of the day. Every time Bilbo looked toward them he caught one or the other casting Thorin a Look, most assuredly capital 'L,' the way Bilbo's parents used to look at him when they were Concerned, capital 'C.'

The amusing bit was that Thorin didn't notice. Dori studied his back with a considering frown while he and Nori wrestled dressers into the bedroom. Nori gave the top of his head an appraising look as Thorin studied the contents of another disagreeable takeout menu.

And they asked odd questions—about Bilbo's flat, about his things, about Lobelia—over their unappetizing dinner, as though they were following up a conversation Bilbo had not been privy to.

Bilbo sighed, and he didn't know whether he was sighing over the minor mystery or the questionable food. Overly greasy burgers, watery sodas and skinny, soggy fries. There were times Bilbo would give nearly anything to feed these Durinsons a proper meal, if only so they would understand what they were missing. How easily could their dinner be turkey burgers with wedge fries roasted in olive oil and rosemary, thick chocolate milkshakes with servings of fruit blended in?

Bilbo missed his kitchen, even though he was sitting in it. He missed it with a passion, a deep, unshakable ache in his belly, a jittery restlessness in his fingers.

When the Risens said their farewells, they both hugged Thorin—Nori with a completely inappropriate squeeze of Thorin's arse, which Bilbo did _not_ blush to see, and which did not make him wonder over them, but which did have Thorin scowling—and whispered words in his ear too quietly for Bilbo to hear, but Thorin nodded and smiled gratefully at them. The mystery continued, for Bilbo had no doubt it was somehow related to the looks they'd been giving him.

Bilbo was not frowning at that. There was absolutely no reason to frown, except that this had turned out to be the very worst day in his ghostly existence. (Barring the fact that he was not a ghost.) That included the day he'd woken up from a hangover extremely intangible, and the day Lobelia had gotten him declared dead, neither of which were high on his list of _pleasant_ experiences.

He trailed Thorin and his nephews back down the entry hall and tried not to feel as annoyed as he did.

Fíli was tugging at Thorin's arm. "When can we do the ceiling?"

" _What_ do you plan to do to my ceiling?" Bilbo snapped waspishly.

At least Thorin seemed to be of the same mind this time. He blinked down at his nephew hanging off his arm while Kíli clung to Fíli's waist, like some living version of barrel monkeys. "And what do you want to do to the ceiling?"

"Paint it!" They hollered together.

"We ran out of blue or we'd done it today," Kíli said, giving Thorin a very serious look. Bilbo crossed his arms over his chest and gave the boys a baleful look.

"If you'd not tipped the can of blue over, you'd still have enough and then some," Thorin said, and Bilbo nodded in agreement. He wouldn't live through another paint day, he knew it in his bones. He refused to go through it again.

Kíli made a face, and even as Fíli piped up with, "It was an accident," Kíli said, "Ori did it."

"Pair of sneaks, the both of you," Bilbo griped. "You tricked Ori into tripping over the cans and we all know it." It'd almost given Bilbo a heart attack, first as Ori went tumbling head over tail through three tins of paint—the poor lad had been covered head to foot in blue and green until Dori wrangled him into an impromptu bath while Nori and Thorin corralled the other two—and then as the paint started soaking through the newspaper. He'd been sure Ori had been hurt. He'd been sure his wood floor had been headed toward its destruction. Thankfully, both were perfectly fine.

Needless to say, the prospect of painting anything else, let alone his _ceiling_ , sent a chill straight down Bilbo's spine.

"Of course he did," Thorin said, sounding far too agreeable, in Bilbo's opinion. "Ori _accidentally_ was told to step backwards into all the open cans of paint. The both of you _accidentally_ failed to warn him about them. I don't know how I could have forgotten. Now remind me why I should agree to paint the ceiling blue?"

"White's so boring," Kíli declared. Fíli leveled his uncle with the most intensely exasperated look, as though he thought Thorin were a particularly dim bulb in a box full of burnt out ones. Neither of them looked a jot apologetic.

Then again, Dori and Thorin both had scolded the boys—Dori like a particularly persistent and entirely displeased mother bear, and Thorin like a loud thundercloud—from one end of the flat to the other, after Ori returned from his impromptu bath. No doubt Fíli and Kíli both felt they'd paid their dues.

"We're gonna make constellations," Fíli said imperiously, frowning with one part defiance and two parts determination.

Bilbo blinked at him, ire washing away in his surprise. "That is a surprisingly pleasant idea."

"Mum bought us the stars," Kíli declared. "And Fí said you'd have the charts and everything."

Bilbo shot Thorin a surprised look. "You're an astronomer?"

Thorin's mouth quirked in a smile. "Alright, you win, you pair of monsters. We'll paint the ceiling blue." And when they started shouting gleefully he raised his voice, "But not tonight. We'll have to do it next time you visit. Right now it's about three hours past your bedtime. If your mum finds out, she will murder me and you two will be down one uncle."

That didn't dampen their spirits. They bounced around the living room. The guest room, now the boys' personalized bedroom, was off limits until it aired out properly, which meant they'd be having a slumber party in Bilbo's bed tonight. If Thorin could shepherd them so far as to reach it.

Bilbo was starting to doubt it, and doubt Thorin's ability to get them to sleep in the first place, considering both were zooming around and around and _around_ the room like Tasmanian devils, leaping onto the couch and off again, flying over the coffee table, dashing down the hall with little _vroom_ noises.

It reminded Bilbo achingly of Frodo's visits.

Of course, now Frodo was a lad of fifteen, living in Japan with his parents, and likely didn't know Bilbo was—well, not dead, exactly, but missing. Undead. No, that was zombies… Ghostified. Gandalfed. Bilbo winced and decided he'd have to figure out a better term for his current state of existence.

His hopefully temporary current state of existence.

Thorin caught Kíli as he flew past and hauled him up and off his feet as Kíli shrieked and laughed. "Enough of that, demon."

"Hey, I'm the demon around here!" Fíli stopped across the coffee table from his uncle and glared, propping hands on hips.

"Is that so?" he asked, and though Bilbo wasn't facing him, he could tell could tell from his tone alone that he had an imperious expression on his face to rival Fíli's own.

"It is!"

"What would your brother be then?"

Fíli studied Kíli—still hanging from Thorin's arms—with a bossy, considering look in the way only siblings could achieve. "My minion."

"Hey!" Kíli protested.

"Hm," Thorin said, as though considering Fíli's declaration seriously. "As it happens, _I'm_ the demon of the family, as declared by your grandmother. So that means you're both _my_ minions," Thorin finally informed him, and Bilbo covered his face with his hands to smother his laugh. This family was absolutely barking.

Coming from a veritable ghost, that was saying something.

Bilbo thought he rather liked it.

"We are not," Fíli said, looking for all the world like Thorin had just told him all birthdays everywhere had been banished from the kingdom.

"I am." Thorin dropped Kíli on the couch. "But I may be convinced to share the title, if we discuss it like calm, rational demons."

Fíli brightened, but still eyed him suspiciously. Bilbo didn't blame him. Reluctantly, he nodded, and sidled around the coffee table to climb onto the couch beside Kíli. Bilbo was amused to see Fíli was careful not to get within grabbing distance of Thorin. Insurance, no doubt. Two generations of devils, indeed.

But Thorin only grabbed up the remote and popped in some movie or other—an animated affair with a talking sponge that left Bilbo feeling distinctly disgruntled with the contemporary world's definition of entertainment—and the boys settled down contentedly, Thorin with them.

Bilbo couldn't help watching the family in turn. It was vastly more interesting than the sponge show, at any rate. Thorin was curled around his nephews on the couch, head pillowed on one arm and one socked foot propped up on the coffee table. Kíli had stretched out on the entire couch, using Thorin's leg as a pillow, and Fíli had wedged himself just behind him, using _Kíli_ as a pillow. It was adorable. It reminded him so painfully of his own beloved nephew he found himself edging closer until he was sitting on the other arm of the couch opposite Thorin.

Thorin had a little smile on his face, the light of the television reflecting in his half-closed eyes, and the boys were obliviously content, already asleep though they couldn't have been watching more than fifteen minutes. Bilbo felt himself relaxing in the comfortable familiarity of it.

When Thorin was certain they were asleep, he disentangled himself and snuck over to the guestroom door. Bilbo followed him, more because he wanted to see what Thorin was up to now than any interest in inspecting the newly remade bedroom for what felt like the thousandth time. Thorin's redecorating Bilbo's own flat with not so much as a by-your-leave was still somewhat painful to him. Admittedly, permission was a hard thing to get when the decorator thinks one's dead, and yet…

Bilbo sighed and shoved the thought from his mind, watching as Thorin looked around the room, a slow smile budding across his mouth into something broad and beaming. Thorin was utterly, undeniably proud. Bilbo supposed he had cause for it. For all the horrors the day has brought to Bilbo's fragile psyche, the room did look good. The walls were a deep, dark blue with splashes of green and brown and purple swiped across them, like some chaotic modern painting (one vastly superior to most museum pieces, in Bilbo's opinion), and thanks to Ori, the splashes of color managed to remain somewhat even across all four walls.

Then there was the bunk bed posing as a pirate ship with a rope ladder, wheel, anchor and all, currently settled in the middle of the room along with two chests that looked like distressed treasure chests, as though they'd been sitting at the bottom of some sea-soaked pirate hoard when Thorin bought them. There were also two writing desks and two hideous dressers—one a fire-engine red, and the other a neon orange that Bilbo could hardly look at—nestled alongside the pirate furniture. Everything was safely stored in the center of the room, waiting for Thorin to push them into place in the morning when the paint was dry.

Thorin ran a hand over the orange dresser and smiled dopily at it. Bilbo felt the little remaining aggravation from the day drain out of him at the sight.

Perhaps it was a rather fine room after all, all things considered.

When Thorin tiptoed back to the couch and settled back in with his nephews Bilbo stood over them for awhile, like an odd ghostly guard, casting a long look across the cozy family. He sighed.

"I wish I could tell you how lovely you three are," he told them, and slipped away to look over the havoc of the kitchen.

~*~

Scones were one of those terribly easy things to make, though anyone disinterested in baking never guessed it. A little flour, some butter, a dash of milk and any particular fruit or flavor one wanted to add… that was all it really took.

After Bilbo finished cleaning the kitchen from the day's mess he decided to make blueberry ones, mostly because Dori had brought fresh fruit for dessert and left the remnants in the fridge for Thorin. Waste not, want not, wasn't that so? Bilbo suspected Thorin wouldn't know what to do with the berries, so Bilbo would put them to good use.

After all, hadn't he promised himself he would make Fíli and Kíli some lovely scones? And so he would, now that the family was asleep on the couch. He had to find some way to apologize for being such a fretful, rude host throughout the day, never mind they didn't know he had been, since they didn't know he was there.

He'd have to be especially quiet with the pans lest he disturb them, but thankfully, Thorin slept like the dead, and Bilbo had yet to meet a child that didn't too.

He set some butter out to warm and fetched the small bag of flour from the pantry, and got underway.

As he doled out the berries and set them aside, he decided he would start the coffee for Thorin too. Nothing fancy, but Thorin _had_ kept Bilbo's professional grade coffee maker, and he rarely used it for anything more than a standard drip brew. Perhaps Bilbo could wrangle up a latte for him, if the scones didn't kill him first.

Which is how Bilbo spent the next three hours of his night, until dawn crept up over the world and sent cool grey fingers of light filtering through the windows. It never should have taken him so long, but it was still difficult to move corporeal things from here to there, especially after expending his energy cleaning, and Bilbo found himself taking breaks every little while.

When he was done, exhausted and sweaty for reasons he couldn't fathom in his intangible state, he slipped back out to the living room and took up the armchair Thorin had moved into Bilbo's flat—a surprisingly comfortable, squat grey thing—watching the sleeping family and trying hard not to succumb to his weariness. Months after his…Gandalfication, he was still wary of falling asleep.

The last thing he remembered was wondering when Fíli had moved to the outer edge of the couch.

~*~

Bilbo woke to shrieks. He tumbled straight out of the chair in his efforts to stand, and righted himself in time to see Kíli hurtle from the kitchen, half a scone stuffed in his mouth, shouting incoherently through the crumbs.

"Swallow your food before you speak, Kíli," Bilbo groaned, and promptly collapsed back on the chair.

Then he caught sight of Thorin having similar trouble sorting himself out from his abruptly interrupted sleep and felt a little better for it, and smiled at the sight. He was not alone in his despair against bright-eyed, bushy-tailed children everywhere.

Thorin rubbed his face before frowning blearily at his nephew, hands pausing just below his eyes. "Kíli, where'd you get that? Dori…?" And then he muttered, more to himself, "I don't remember Dori bringing bakery."

Kíli said something through his mouthful, golden and purply-blue crumbs tumbling from his mouth in an avalanche.

Thorin groaned. "Chew, Kíli."

Kíli began chewing furiously before swallowing the baked good down. "SCONES!" he shouted happily. "Blueberry ones! In the kitchen! The whole house smells like when Mum bakes!"

Bilbo felt unaccountably pleased, and found himself preening a little at Kíli's obvious enjoyment. 

Thorin was sniffing the air and frowning. "It does," he muttered, and stumbled from his prone position on the couch, hopping a little on one foot as he hit the edge of the coffee table and nearly lost his balance, cursing as he went.

"Not a morning person, are you?" Bilbo muttered.

Thorin's frown deepened and he caught Kíli's hand, firmly tugging the smashed remnants of the scone away from him, ignoring Kíli's displeased cry, and then ignoring the way Kíli stomped his foot, accidentally hitting Thorin's on the way down. Bilbo hoped it was accidental at any rate; Kíli's pout indicated otherwise.

"A blueberry scone?" Thorin spoke to the scone, squinting at it much like Hamlet peered down at Yorick's skull.

"That's mine," Kíli said.

"I don't believe it, you're questioning my scones. You… you _git_ ," Bilbo muttered.

He didn't notice when Fíli came out of the kitchen, but he heard the lad speak. "There's coffee too, uncle," he said, and there was a distinctly reluctant edge to his voice.

Thorin noticed it too. "Fíli? Did you make these? …and coffee?" From his tone, it sounded like he didn't expect his nephews to know what a kitchen was, let alone how to use one. Given that Thorin didn't seem to know what a kitchen was for, that shouldn't have surprised Bilbo so much.

"No," Fíli said slowly. "But Dori's blueberries are gone from the fridge." Bilbo groaned from his spot hidden away in the chair.

"What? Do you mean." Thorin stopped abruptly, and Bilbo peeked out to see a confused, frustrated frown on his face as he stared at his nephews. "Neither of you made the scones."

"Nope," Kíli sang cheerfully.

"But _someone_ made them. Fíli, you're not telling me something."

Bilbo could tell from the pause alone that Fíli was trying to find a way out of whatever it was he knew. And Bilbo could just see Kíli looking interestedly between his brother and uncle. A slow feeling of dread pooled in his stomach.

"Fí," Kíli said, half excited, half whiny, "tell him."

"Shut up, Kí," Fíli mumbled. "I saw something last night. But it was just a dream! I-I thought it was."

"Oh dear." Bilbo risked another peek at Thorin's face. He looked positively thunderous: frozen in place and shocked, scared and angry all at once. Bilbo flinched away, pulling back into the safety of his chair. He'd barely gotten two hours sleep, if the light was anything to go by, and he still felt half dead after last night, no pun intended. He was too tired for this.

He heard Thorin move, and the rustle of clothing suggested he crouched down, and his voice was carefully modulated when he spoke. "What did you see, Fíli? I'm not angry, alright? But you need to tell me."

"It was _floating_ ," Fíli said, all in a rush.

There was a long, patient pause and then, "Start from the beginning."

"Oh," Fíli said. "Um. I woke up last night. I had to pee. And it was still dark out, but the whole house smelled like baking, and there was a clatter from the kitchen."

Bilbo winced. He'd dropped his spoon when he'd been laying out the scones on the baking sheet. He'd paused and listened for any movement in the living room, but the flat had been silent. He should have known better.

"So I looked in the kitchen," he said, voice becoming hurried again. "And the oven was open and there was a tray floating in the air, and it put itself in the oven and the door closed and—and there was a plate of scones on the counter, and they smelled so real, and I thought, that's funny, I never smell things in my dreams, like _ever_ , and I went back to sleep."

Bilbo risked taking another look around the side of the chair, catching sight of the tableau of Thorin kneeling on the floor in front of Fíli, holding his hands. Bilbo couldn't see his face, but Fíli looked so uncertain and worried. Bilbo could have kicked himself.

Of course they would notice his banging around last night, baking at three in the morning like a madman. Of course it would be strange and dreadful, not considerate. If Bilbo woke to find mysterious scones on his counter, what would he himself think?

Well, he'd have thought Holman came by, or Drogo was in for a visit. But that wasn't really the point, now was it? The Durinsons didn't have friends who might come and go in the middle of the night, or people who left them bakery without explanation.

What had he been thinking? Why did he never get these things right? Even in life—in corporeality, that was—his gestures were always a little off, skewed left of center. Never normal.

"Did you see anyone?" Thorin asked, fingers squeezing lightly around Fíli's hands.

Fíli paused, clearly thinking about it before he answered. Finally he said, "No-o-o," the single word dragged out in a long, thoughtful note. "It was floating, higher than my head. And I looked all around the kitchen, but no one was there. It—It seemed like a good dream."

Thorin sighed. "It sounds like. Alright, boys, I want you to sit on the couch while I vet the flat. Promise me you won't move until I tell you to, or some stranger pops up trying to kidnap you."

The boys giggled. Bilbo did not. He buried his head in his hands. "Oh no." His heart felt like it'd sunk straight down to his toes.

Thorin paused as he headed for the kitchen. "How many scones did you both eat?"

"Two," Fíli said promptly.

"Three!" Kíli shouted, then paused. "Two and a half. You _took_ my other bit. And I want another! They're good, better than Mum's!"

"How long ago?"

"Hoooours," Kíli declared gleefully.

Fíli made a face at him. "'round seven."

"An hour ago," Thorin said, and Bilbo couldn't tell if he found that to be good news or bad.

"They're not poisoned, for God's sake, Thorin. And there's no intruder! I was simply trying to be kind, again. And it failed rather spectacularly. Again," he said, and finally looked around the chair again even though his voice remained quiet. Bilbo smiled at the sight of the boys despite feeling furious with himself at how completely stupid he'd been. Kíli was grinning, clearly pleased with the unexpected bounty, his cheeks stained with blueberry crumbs. Fíli was watching his uncle, half worried and half skeptical; he looked so much like Dís in that moment Bilbo couldn't help chuckling. The boys, at least, accepted the scones in the way they were intended.

Thorin didn't hear him, not a syllable of what Bilbo said, and slipped into the kitchen without another word.

It took Thorin twenty minutes to 'vet' the entire flat. He looked in closets and behind shower curtains and under beds, the whole ball of wax. Bilbo felt terrible, trailing after him, trying to explain though Thorin couldn't hear him.

After following Thorin through the kitchen and the guest bedroom though, Bilbo gave up and chose to keep the boys company instead. He told them stories about Frodo, about Frodo's Fellowship, about the tales he and Frodo made up together. Perhaps children could sense him better than adults, after all, not that they'd shown any awareness of his presence before.

And he hoped he hadn't ruined the morning too much. He hoped Thorin wouldn't throw out the scones or coffee either. Those had cost Bilbo a lot of energy, and were perfectly good. Poisoned indeed, like Bilbo was some mad burglar in the night. The baking burglar. He snorted to himself.

But when Thorin returned—looking over his nephews like he worried they would keel over before his eyes—and ushered them to the kitchen and settled them down for some cold cereal, the scones still sat where Bilbo had left them on the table.

Thorin glanced at them and muttered, "Green." Bilbo groaned to himself, scrubbed his hands over his face, half tempted to yank his hair out in frustration. Or Thorin's. Distantly, he knew Thorin wasn't being unreasonable, but the entire morning felt like a slap in the face regardless.

Bilbo just wanted to do something _nice_ , and no matter how he tried, he kept screwing everything up. The story of his life.

And Thorin still swatted Kíli's hand away when the lad made a grab for one. "Cereal, _just_ cereal, and if either of you start feeling even the littlest sick, you tell me immediately." And he muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, "I'm going to murder him this time."

"It wasn't Holman." Bilbo sighed, and halfheartedly added, "And they're not poisoned."

Then Thorin ate a scone, making it disappear entirely in two large bites.

Kíli shouted his outrage. Bilbo frowned at Thorin, his thoughts grinding to a halt and his emotions doing an unsettling twist in his stomach. Fíli grinned into his bowl of cereal.

" _Uncle_ ," Kíli whined in an impressive display of utter despair, in Bilbo's opinion. He couldn't say he disagreed with the lad.

"You… _horrid_ man," Bilbo said. "I can't begin to fathom what goes on in that annoying, miniscule brain of yours."

"Uncle's worried they're poisoned, Kí," Fíli said, with all the haughtiness of a boy a year older than his little brother determined to flaunt his greater experience.

"That's _stupid_ ," Kíli said. Bilbo muttered agreement.

"I don't think they're poisoned," Thorin interrupted the budding argument. "I don't _think_ so, but that is a concern. In fact, I can guess who brought them—"

"—they were made here," Fíli argued.

Thorin shook his head. "That was a dream, Fíli. I'm sure you smelled them when a very … impolite neighbor brought them over this morning, in a misguided assumption I would appreciate it."

Bilbo snorted, still melancholy and severely annoyed. "Please don't hare off to wrongly shout at my best friend again."

Fíli clearly agreed, "But—"

"There are no dishes," Thorin said firmly. "Or anything to suggest someone was cooking in here last night.

"The blueberries are gone," Fíli said.

"They're not gone," Kíli declared, briefly bringing the pair to a halt as they looked at him. "They're _in the scones_."

Fili scowled at him. Thorin caught his arm just in time to stop the lad from flinging a spoonful of cereal at his younger brother.

"Mr. Green, my neighbor, probably borrowed the berries when he dropped off the scones," Thorin said, defusing any fights over the breakfast table. "But if I get either of you killed on one of your visits Dís will send me after you, so. No eating the possibly deadly bakery."

"But you ate one!" Kíli said.

"I'm catching up with you two," he said. "If we're going to poison ourselves, we'll all do it together and save your mum the trouble. And until I speak with Mr. Green and figure out what's going on, no more possibly deadly bakery. Got it?"

The boys grumbled, but agreed.

"That's the biggest load of nonsense rationalization I've heard since I did a guest seminar at my old university and had to mark those dreadful essays," Bilbo said before he bit his tongue. What he wanted to say he had no business saying around impressionable children.

But he noticed Thorin poured himself a cup of coffee. Apparently the lack of a murderous baker hiding under any of the beds had calmed Thorin's worries.

Whether the entire morning was a failure or a victory, Bilbo couldn't tell anymore, but he wasn't at all sure he felt well for any of it.

And now he'd have to keep an eye out for when Thorin decided to tear off to confront Holman.

~*~


	9. The One Cookbook

Bilbo was having one of those dreadful days. The ones where Thorin _organized_. The architect had finally committed to Bilbo's study since he first gave it up in favor of Bilbo's journals, and Bilbo really rather wished he hadn't. Thorin was emptying Bilbo's shelves and moving box after box of books down into storage.

Weeks ago Thorin chose to keep Bilbo's Victorian classics, and a few others of Bilbo's literary collection, favoring the gothic and classic romances particularly. Those were all in the living room.

But Bilbo's study was full of reference materials, his most beloved editions of various books, his journals, his own publications, and his 'guilty pleasures,' his fantasy and romance collections, which Bilbo hadn't the least bit of guilt over. Visitors—those who fell into the Unwanted Guests category—however, always felt it necessary to make Remarks over his collections, so Bilbo had learned to keep certain genres in his study, where only invited guests would ever wander.

He hadn't anticipated dying. He hadn't anticipated _Thorin_.

Thorin, like many before him, scoffed over most of it, and immediately slotted all the fantasy and _most_ of the romances into boxes, and Bilbo found it all unsurprising—though still dismaying—until those chosen few were set aside. Thorin kept a handful of paperbacks and all of Bilbo's journals, slotting them carefully into the one bookcase it appeared he planned to keep. Most of his other books went.

His favorite classics—ranging from Greek to Russian, from Plato to Chekhov—were packed away. The man clearly had no sense of taste. Bilbo appreciated Thorin's dedication to gothic romances steeped in dramatic backdrops and the social scandals of the _ton_ , but really. Even his Wilde went. His Kafka. His Woolf.

Bilbo didn't know what had happened, but something had shifted after the visit from Thorin's nephews and the Risen brothers. When before Thorin had avoided Bilbo's study like he expected to find a dead body behind its door, now he went at it with _verve_. Perhaps the impetus had been the incident with the scones and his nephews. Or Nori and Dori, who may have said something Bilbo missed. Or perhaps Thorin had stumbled over something in one of Bilbo's journals.

Because Thorin kept those, every single one, which was flattering, of course, if unnerving. Thorin was still reading them almost nightly, not driven off by what surely had to be tedious prose, and he was slowly collecting all the books Bilbo had written, jotting down pennames and titles whenever he stumbled across them scattered throughout Bilbo's entries.

Why had Bilbo been so foolish to mention every single one of his works and pseudonyms in his diary? Habit, of course, from a lifetime of writing down his daily activities, but perhaps some of it was hubris too.

Perhaps, Bilbo's foot. It was most certainly hubris. Bilbo always thought himself so clever. He'd thought some day when he was dead, perhaps someone would read his journals and put together his little secrets.

Well.

Now he was… not-exactly-dead and Thorin was puzzling all of it out, and Bilbo felt like a clod and a fool rolled in one. He'd never wanted to _watch_ someone read his books. Why else would he obsessively write under assumed names?

He wished Thorin would put more books aside. _Real_ books, not Bilbo's own foolish scribblings.

Days like this, he wished Thorin would stop cleaning out at all. There'd been enough cleaning. Thorin had done _enough_.

But more of Thorin's own furniture was slowly invading Bilbo's home, brought back by Thorin a few pieces at a time from some mysterious place out in the world. All of it needed a place to go. At that moment there was a small pile of office furniture downstairs waiting to be brought up, and Bilbo knew Thorin wouldn't stop. The large architect's table, the smaller desk, a filing cabinet, boxes of paperwork, boxes of Thorin's books… Though Bilbo was still surprised the man owned books, considering his vendetta against Bilbo's own.

And more of those cursed floating shelves.

Everything piled downstairs was meant to remake Bilbo's study into Thorin's office. He couldn't keep working off the kitchen table, after all.

Bilbo sighed, the weight of the world—or at least Bilbo's world—on his shoulders, and ran his fingers along the spines of his books, the few Thorin kept in the last standing bookshelf. He couldn't feel them beneath his fingers, and tried to recall the weight and texture of a book in his hands. 

Below the rows of books was a tidy stack of periodicals full of Dr. Daisy Took's academic articles: a collaborative scientific-literary study on fairy rings, a comparative overview of various cultures' folklore, authorial authority through history, endlessly on. On the next shelf up sat Bungo Bell's high fantasy series, full of nonsense like wizards and elves and dragons, trolls and dwarves, along with Bell's sole suspense thriller, highly questionable and poorly received. For God's sake, even Bilba Myrtle's airy, insubstantial little romances, more often trite than inspiring, were safely ensconced on the next shelf up.

And Minto Boggins's cookbook sat on the little reading table Thorin had kept, the one Gandalf and Bilbo had set their teacups on during Gandalf's first and only visit. When Thorin had seen the cookbook he'd paused in his work, ran his fingers over the cover, which was only a silly doodle of Bilbo himself as a small imaginary creature in a round imaginary kitchen. A Hobbit, in a Hobbit-hole, which meant comfort. He smiled at the distant memory, of a book he'd written years ago, worked on throughout uni, and had never published.

The strange thing was, Bilbo was fairly sure Thorin did not know Minto Boggins was Bilbo, for every time Thorin ran across one of his pseudonyms, he would write it down on a slip of paper where he kept the growing list of Bilbo's secret identities.

Minto Boggins hadn't been added to it, and God knew Thorin wasn't the least bit interested in the kitchen, so why had _The One Cookbook_ made him pause so? He'd flipped open the cover, fingers tracing over the poem on the first page.

> _In the Land of the Kitchen where the recipes lie,_  
>  _One book to rule them all, one book to make them,_  
>  _One book to bring them all, and in the oven bake them._  
>  _In the Land of the Kitchen where the recipes lie._  
> 

Of course, then he'd set it aside and immediate returned to the deconstruction—destruction—of Bilbo's library seemingly without another thought, a thing which Bilbo had built up over the entirety of his life.

At the end of it, Thorin performed a feat of dark magic by somehow fitting his overlarge architect's table through the door. Then he hauled up his appreciably smaller desk, and the horrible floating shelf units.

Bilbo would not be putting another set of those up. It was not only unworthy of his finite ghostly energy, but he refused to encourage Thorin's peculiar obsession with them now that it was clear Thorin obvious did have a peculiar obsession.

Thorin hadn't arranged them though, muttering something that sounded alarmingly like 'paint' when he'd flicked off the lights and headed downstairs. "Something brighter," Thorin sighed. "Rust orange. Or blue to contrast the brick."

"There's nothing wrong with white walls," Bilbo griped, following him. Not that he disagreed with Thorin; a nice, earthy color was almost always preferable to a cold white. But he desperately wanted to preserve something of his flat. It felt like the place was tumbling down around his ears. "Of course the two plaster walls look a bit… worn for wear. They've been covered by bookshelves for decades. If you'd left the bookshelves, everything would be fine right now."

"A skylight," Thorin hummed. "I'll have to look over the blueprints to see what's above the study ceiling."

" _Sky_ is above my ceiling. If you had any sense you would remember the garden sits on the lower level of the roof. And don't you dare," Bilbo said.

"I can't believe he covered the brick walls at all," Thorin complained, sounding just as irritated as Bilbo felt.

"I needed the shelf space," he snapped.

"It's not as if anyone could ever utilize so many damn books in the first place."

Fortunately, Thorin's phone rang just then, or Bilbo really would have given in to his temper and lobbed one of those same books at Thorin's head. Somehow he suspected being a ghost wouldn't justify murder. "I've read every one of those books," he muttered sullenly even as Thorin tugged his phone from his pocket.

"Dís," Thorin said curtly into his phone. Bilbo frowned at the back of his head, following him as he continued into the kitchen. The man had no manners. Thorin paused, listening to Dís on the other end, then, "Yeah… Mhm. That's what I wanted to talk about. … Yeah, obviously."

Bilbo sighed and sat himself carefully on one of the barstools. He had an intrinsic knack for not sinking through floors, or beds or chairs, but things like barstools were trickier for reasons Bilbo still couldn't understand. Maybe it was the way he had to hop a little to seat himself, or the way his foot refused to acknowledge the rung as a legitimate step up and always sank through it.

Thorin pulled a beer from the fridge before rifling through the freezer for another of his awful frozen dinners. If only Bilbo could cook for him, regardless of his utterly poor manners and worse taste. No one deserved to rely upon microwavable meals.

Not that Thorin's taste was entirely horrible, precisely. It was simply… colliding with Bilbo's. Which made it horrible by some definition, Bilbo was certain.

"That cookbook of yours," Thorin said, causing Bilbo's attention to snap back to his conversation. "The one Kíli's obsessed with—"

"—right, I thought it was Minto Boggins."

"Hard to forget that inscription. One book to rule them all…"

Thorin stood frozen in the open freezer, fingers tight around the door handle. He hummed noncommittally to something Dís said.

"No, I didn't. I found a copy of the Boggins cookbook here—no shit, I know you have a copy already. That's not why I'm asking— _Dís_."

"So Kíli's still obsessed with him?"

"Yeah, I don't think he'll put out another book, Dís."

"Because I think Mr. Boggins is Dr. Baggins." Thorin paused again, listening to his sister. He finally sighed and reached blindly into the freezer, pulling out the first thing his hand landed on.

Alfredo chicken over a bed of penne pasta. Heat in the microwave for three minutes, stir, heat another two. Bilbo cringed.

"Would I bring it up if I wasn't pretty damn sure? No, not just because their names are similar. Jesus, Dís." Thorin tore the flimsy box open, stabbed a fork over the plastic covering the tray and shoved the entire affair into the microwave. "I don't know why I bothered calling you."

A pause.

"Yes, I'm sure. That poem Kíli's always shouting every time you cook—"

"—yeah, one book to make them all, that one. I've seen it before, in one of Bilbo's journals."

Another pause, and Thorin pulled the chicken out of the microwave, giving the entire mess an inattentive stir before tossing it back in. "No, he wasn't copying it from the cookbook. The journal version of the poem was written fifteen years ago, and it was different, a lot darker."

"I don't recall, something about a dark lord and a magical ring."

"Yeah. I'm about to eat—it's _fine_ , it's pasta."

"Fuck's sake, Dís."

"No, I was busy. Cleaned out the study all day."

"Yeah. I've got a meeting day after tomorrow, but this weekend's fine."

"Fine, good. See you then. Bye."

Thorin hung up. He pulled the chicken alfredo out of the microwave.

"Please tell me you're not going to eat that," Bilbo lamented, and when Thorin stared at it for a long minute he suspected Dís had said something similar.

Thorin grimaced, swore, and threw it in the trash before stomping out to the living room, snatching his beer from the counter as he passed.

Bilbo trailed after him, unsure whether it'd be worse for Thorin to starve or eat that slop. Maybe he would make scones tonight. Thorin had at least stopped suspecting foul play of them, even if he occasionally grumbled darkly about Holman and spare keys.

Whatever Thorin thought, he hadn't yet gone to shout down Holman, for which Bilbo was both grateful and greatly confused over. Thorin wasn't what Bilbo would call short on temper, and he always muttered over 'Green' any time Bilbo fussed around the flat. But since the scones four days ago he'd hesitated to confront Holman, whatever that meant.

But for the most part, Bilbo's mind was awhirl with the knowledge that Dís had Minto Boggin's— _Bilbo's_ cookbook, and Kíli loved it.

For reasons Bilbo couldn't explain, and didn't want to look at too closely, he felt a sharp pang of melancholy.

Bilbo sat in the armchair for a minute before giving into his instinct and sliding off to sit on the floor, shuffling over until he was leaning against the couch where Thorin had sprawled out. He stared blankly at the television. Thorin was watching one of those crime dramas. _Spooks_ , Bilbo thought, and for the first time in years Bilbo let himself sink into a show, not paying any mind to the bits that didn't make sense.

He didn't know why he was suddenly filled with such overwhelming sadness. But then, he'd never understood why he sometimes felt sad to the core of his very being for no reason he could discern. It was simply a thing he lived with.

This time, Thorin was at his side, even if Thorin didn't realize it. There was something comforting in that: sitting with someone who let him feel sad. Even Erestor had never been able to let Bilbo sit in his moods, always trying to cajole him and distract him until he snapped out of them.

Thorin just let him be. Admittedly, Thorin didn't know that's what he was doing, didn't know Bilbo was _there_ , but it felt the same.

Thorin's hand shifted over the edge of the couch, and if Bilbo could have felt anything he would have felt the tickle of warm fingers grazing his neck. Instead, he shifted enough to lean his head back against the couch, and let out a sigh of, if not precisely contentment, something near enough to it.

"Fucking Lucas North," Thorin muttered. "What the hell is he doing?"

"He looks a bit like you," Bilbo said.

Thorin grumbled something about spies and brainwashing.

"He has your nose," Bilbo added, and settled into silence, letting the show and Thorin's biting commentary wash over him, pushing back his grief until it was buried back in the corner of his mind where it belonged.

Because that was what his sadness felt like: grief. He just didn't know what he was grieving for.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit shorter than I like, so I'm hoping to get the next chapter up early, around the middle of this week. Fingers crossed!
> 
> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr. (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	10. One Cup Lost for Melancholy

> _31 December,_
> 
> _Drogo is sick as anything, and Prim's away, working in Japan this month. No doubt you've correctly guessed where this is leading: the New Year's party at the embassy Erestor invited me to some weeks ago. Drogo is handling Frodo alone while Prim is gone, and he can't look after the little lad when crawling out of bed to reach the toilet is too strenuous to manage._
> 
> _I've called Erestor to let him know I can't make it after all, but he's not picking up. I hope he's not on his way already; I have to pick up Frodo as soon as I may, and we'll likely miss each other._
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> _Later - more accurately, one hour and thirty-five minutes into 1 January_
> 
> _Erestor appeared on my doorstep just as I stepped out to pick up Frodo. I haven't yet decided if that was lucky or not._
> 
> _Needless to say, Erestor was put out. A moment later, he came up with the ludicrous idea to bring Frodo to the party. Who brings a seven-year-old to a boring party full of politicians and diplomats and their army of spouses? I forget how he talked me into it. Or more accurately, I forgot what he said as he did that thing with his mouth behind my ear that always defeated me in uni. I am somewhat baffled to report the entire affair turned into a rousing success. The power of adorable seven-year-olds everywhere, I suppose._
> 
> _Who would have thought the Swedish ambassador would find Frodo's breadstick-walrus impersonation adorable? I didn't dare tell the man it was from that Addams Family movie Frodo's been obsessed with the last few months. (Frodo has as much a fascination with the macabre as Prim does, and that has made the Addams Family excellent fodder when Frodo requires distraction. Frodo has already asked if I have any man-eating flowers in the garden. Perhaps I shall propose an expedition for us to find some—ostensibly to guard the garden against perennial-thieves—next time he visits. He would like such a quest, I am sure, to add to his collection.)_
> 
> _Nor will I write in detail the way in which Frodo stuffed fourteen cocktail shrimps in his mouth, or hid under tables untying everyone's shoelaces, or regaled a room full of bourbon-swilling bureaucrats with his tales of his Fellowship (stress the capital F, Frodo always tells me). It is enough, I think, to give any of these antics a line, let alone anything further to indelibly burn the experience into my memory._
> 
> _And still, a rousing success. What can I say? Frodo always makes me laugh. Apparently so does the sight of eight politicians tripping over their shoelaces at once._
> 
> _Erestor came up for coffee, after. We put Frodo to bed together, and sat talking for another hour. He's gone home now. If Frodo were not here, I'd have asked Erestor to stay. An astute observer will correctly guess Glorfindel is once more on the outs with Erestor. I believe he's in Italy on business, but it's hard to say with certainty considering Erestor refuses to talk about it. In any matter, neither of them are bothering to call each other and they're once more off in their perpetually rocky relationship. I neither know nor wish to discover what they're fighting over this time. But as I was saying, if Frodo was not staying the night… It's little moments like these that make me wonder how much of a mistake I have made, never bothering to find someone to settle with._
> 
> _Then again, I've not met someone I would wish to settle with, except perhaps Erestor, and there is a proverbial can of worms I shouldn't like to open. He and Glorfindel are well suited to each other, and look at the mess their relationship is perpetually in._
> 
> _Well. Regardless, let's say this is a four-cup day, one cup lost for melancholy._  
> 

Thorin was becoming obsessed.

Succinctly put, he was enamored with a journal. With a flat. With the man who'd filled it with so many memories Thorin felt like he was running into an entire mountain of someone else's life every time he came home.

It was nice, in a sharp, bitter way. Like a particularly good drink.

It wasn't that Bilbo shared Thorin's interests in any way. They really didn't have anything in common, except perhaps a love of family. And the occasional book, though Thorin was inclined to disregard that considering Bilbo seemed fond of every book, with not an ounce of discriminating taste between one or another.

But Thorin was coming to the frustrating conclusion the man was more or less perfect. Thorin was, if anything, not perfect. So far from it the notion made him laugh, and not in a humorous way.

He knew himself well enough to know he was vain, arrogant, private to the point of prison levels of isolation (the last according to Frerin in any case, though Thorin knew it to be true). He was intelligent and opinionated. He couldn't stand dealing with people who could not hold their own in conversation (an intellectual battlefield, again from Frerin). He knew architecture very well, and he knew only a little about every other subject, including astronomy (a hobby picked up from his mother), jazz (his teenage career dedicated to rebellion—he'd tried for rock and roll but jazz had appealed more, and it still drove his father crazy), and children's toys (Fíli and Kíli).

He was probably the worst type of person to get along with. Or so every single ex had kindly informed him as they shouted and packed their bags and hightailed it out of his life.

That was fine with Thorin. He wasn't overly interested in committing to anything or anyone that wasn't his work or his family.

Then there was Bilbo Baggins.

It seemed as though he'd lived his life in a bubble of solitude that Thorin related to on some level. Bilbo Baggins never let anyone too close, literally, his flat and friendships a testament to his ability at keeping people at a distance. Thorin never let anyone in, figuratively, despite his family trampling over every inch of Thorin's life.

And somehow Bilbo was kind to the point of being a pushover. He was brilliant—smarter than Thorin, actually fucking _brilliant_. He had a doctorate in history, a bachelor's in English. He had twenty volumes of journals documenting his life. He'd published novels, poetry and nonfiction under assumed names—ones he mentioned in his journals, and it'd been a pain in Thorin's arse, going down to basement storage and digging out the books Bilbo had published under his various pennames, but he couldn't _not_ —and published essays in journals of history and literature. The man cooked professional-level meals, did volunteer work, and kept up lengthy handwritten correspondence with any number of acquaintances, not all of them in English.

Thorin was still expecting to unearth evidence Bilbo once held an active career in theatre, negotiated delicate peace treaties while on holiday, sang opera in his spare time, rescued kittens from trees on his frequent walks, and was offered a trip to the moon to work on some inane research project.

Utterly inane.

Because for all of the man's apparent skills—of which there were many, and which made Thorin feel like a layabout every other day—Bilbo did fuck all with them.

What the fuck does someone do with a doctorate in history, except teach, which Bilbo _didn't_ do? (A handful of his entries revealed he couldn't stand other people's kids, and Thorin couldn't blame him.) What use was a freakishly encyclopedic knowledge of English literature when one wasn't, again, a teacher or librarian?

In the least his volunteer work was remarkable, Thorin thought. Bilbo liked everybody, as isolated as he seemed to be. He had casual friends everywhere, and a kind word for everyone. He could work with the sick and the hurting and see the _person_ behind the pain and anger, and Thorin knew in his bones and skin and soul how incredible that was.

Bilbo's books were remarkable as well. His nonfiction essays on various points of history and literature—favoring the era of the rise of the printing press—were filled with dry wit and incisive, detailed examination of the period.

But Bilbo had kept those parts of his life anonymous, invisible to anyone who knew his name.

And his extensive correspondence with what felt like half the world was… nice, but that's all it was. Nice. Like Bilbo Baggins. The man was nice, and for all his brilliance he was also vaguely useless.

It offended Thorin on some intrinsic, deeply personal level that someone so damn gifted had frittered his talents away like they were nothing.

He wanted to meet this man who made himself so invisible with such offending determination. And Thorin didn't know if he wanted to rip the fool to shreds for it or ask him out for coffee.

What he did know for sure: Bilbo was gone, and if Thorin confided to his friends he was increasingly attracted to a dead man, they would probably jointly have him committed.

He picked up another of Bilbo's journals at random, flipping to the first page.

> _Dad's cleaning house, and I found scads of his old journals. One focuses entirely on his plans for the Shire; he'd begun sketching out his renovations a couple months after meeting Mum, when he realized he wanted to marry her...._

~*~

"Learn to pick up your fucking phone, Thor."

"Nori," Thorin said, resignation dropping down on him like an ill omen. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Yeah, yeah, I just got in." Thorin heard the jangling _clunk_ of what sounded like a large ring of keys hitting a hard surface. "So, you're not going to believe—"

"When a person doesn't answer their phone the first two times you call in a row, that's a pretty good indication to stop calling," Thorin said, and resisted the urge to throw his phone against the wall when Nori scoffed. The only thing that would achieve would be the necessity of buying a new phone.

"I just got in. Been a long day, but," Nori started.

"It's two. In the goddamn. Morning," Thorin gritted out.

"Yeah, and you're asleep on your couch with some crime drama on, right?" Nori was likely rolling his eyes, given his tone.

Thorin didn't answer. That comment didn't deserve one.

"I'm a PI, for fuck's sake. That shit on the telly's all bull at the best of times. If you want to see real criminal drama, you should come stake out an adulterer's flat with me or something," Nori griped.

"Get off my phone," Thorin complained.

"Like today, for example, now this shit's way more interesting than some show, and it involves you. Guess what I found out?"

Thorin's interest piqued a little at that. "What is it?"

"Not going to guess?"

"I will fucking hang up on you, I swear to God."

"Considering I've got all the news, that sounds like a poor threat."

Thorin hung up on him.

Nori called back, Thorin didn't pick up. It was only after he dragged himself off his couch, flicked off the television, and made his way halfway up the stairs when he finally deigned to answer again. It was Nori's third call in a row. Again.

"Get to the point already," he grumbled into the phone, turning around abruptly to go back down to the kitchen. He needed a cup of coffee for this. Or a beer. Tea. Something.

Nori was laughing. "You're an asshole, you know that?"

"Nice of you to notice," he said.

"Ah well, you're going to deserve the shock you're about to get. So, guess what I found out?"

"Nori," Thorin growled, shoving his way into his kitchen.

"This Dr. Baggins of yours, he's not dead," Nori said, all at once serious. "Or leastwise not as far as I can find. No body, death certificate's a load of horseshit, one of those ones they write up when they don't know where the person's disappeared to."

Thorin felt his axis tilt, and his legs felt weak beneath him. He caught himself on the lip of the counter, bracing his weight. "What?"

"Weird thing is," Nori was saying, "Those sorts of cases, missing persons cases, you've got to be missing seven years before you're declared anything, but Baggins has only been gone five months."

"He's not dead, you're sure? Where the fuck is he?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "Not that I've evidence he's alive either, mind. Thorin, to be honest with you, there's no evidence either direction. I don't know for certain he's alive, but there sure ain't evidence he's dead either. See what I'm saying?"

"You mean you don't know shit," Thorin translated, and forced steady breaths back into his lungs. The fate of Bilbo should not derail him so much, he told himself grimly. And still, he felt fury well up at Nori's games. "You fucking a—"

"Oh, calm down," Nori cut him off, unruffled and intractable. He was used to being on the wrong end of people's outrage. "I told you, it's strange, yeah? Something's fishy. It's good you asked me to look into it. You might consider thumping that cousin of yours into checking up on the legitimate side of the law."

He thought about reminding Nori he _hadn't_ asked, Nori and Dori had stuck their noses where they didn't belong like usual, but given the circumstances he let the point slide. "Private investigation is legitimate," he said instead, but contacting Dwalin didn't sound like a terrible idea either. Dwalin was a detective inspector with a nose for trouble that was almost as good as Nori's.

"Not always," Nori said. "I'll keep looking into matters on my end, but I can tell you, depending on the missing person, five months in? Odds are fifty-fifty they're alive or not. Police'll tell you otherwise, mind. They don't like to keep false hopes up with family, and as the missing persons get younger, the less good the odds. But Dr. Baggins is thirty-three, and there's a chance he got an itch or went off without leaving noticed or there's always human trafficking—"

"Or he could be dead after all, they just haven't found his body," Thorin interrupted, and suddenly his cup of tea didn't sound nearly so appetizing. He steeped the leaves anyway, and tried not to think about _human trafficking_ , or the way Nori seemed to think that was a comforting thought. It was so far out of the realm of realism Thorin should have found it funny.

"Fifty-fifty," Nori said. "What's caught my interest is these relations of his, the Sackvilles? It was Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins who got the declaration of death pushed through. Now I'd like to know the how and why of that."

"They wanted his property," Thorin said bluntly. "The Shire Apartments, it's a good investment, and Sackville-Baggins hasn't disguised her smugness over them."

"Yeah, I'd come to similar conclusions," Nori said, and paused. "Mind, it could be more sinister than that. I'm looking into what I can get my hands on."

"Great," Thorin said, and tried to ignore the way his stomach clenched at the 'more sinister' options. Sackville-Baggins was greedy and unpleasant, but that did not mean she was a murderer. "Thanks, Nori. Let me know if you find out anything more."

"What makes you think I'm done?" Nori asked. "Though if you're tired, by all means, go on to bed."

Thorin sighed. "What else? Spit it out."

"There's gratitude," he said disdainfully.

Thorin waited, quashing down another sigh, and tentatively took a sip of the white peach tea Dori had left him. Instead of making the tight, unpleasant ache in his stomach worse, the warmth curled in his belly, and he relaxed a little, letting some of the tension ease out of his muscles.

"The Shire tenants," Nori said, when he stopped grumbling, "Absolutely despise the Sackvilles. Think they've done Dr. Baggins in."

"Even I noticed how much they dislike her," Thorin said patiently. "Don't much care for me either. But do they really believe she, or her husband, killed Bilbo? That's farfetched, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah. And you'd be surprised how common murder is. Humans ain't particularly pleasant, Thor."

Thorin snorted. "No shit."

"Bang on the money too, so's you know. They hated your guts. But you might find it curious, they don't anymore. Leastwise, not with the passion they did before. Someone's been ingratiating you on the other tenants."

Thorin pinched the bridge of his nose. "Green," he muttered.

There was a startled silence on the other end of the line. "How'd you know a Mr. Green's been talking you up?"

"Scones," Thorin said distractedly. He glanced toward his door, half tempted to finally go confront the nosy busybody that was the Shire's handyman even if it was the middle of the night. Some part of him expected to see Green skulking around in the shadows, a plate of scones in hand and a maniacal glint in his eye.

He'd held back on confronting Green before, some niggling sense telling him to hold off. Scones and soup were harmless after all, and it was Green's job to help tenants out with matters like putting up shelves. And everything else… Thorin wasn't actually certain someone was coming in and cleaning, but the flat remained surprisingly dustless, and coasters kept popping up out of fucking nowhere.

"…scones," Nori said. "Alright. I don't know anything about that, but I do know he's found you to be likeable enough, for unfathomable reasons. Now, I've been asking around—"

"You've been harassing my neighbors?"

"It's called 'socializing,' Thor."

"Christ, what have you been doing?"

"S-O-C-I-A-L-I-Z-I-N-G, socializing. Now say it with me—"

"Don't harass my neighbors, Nori," Thorin snapped.

Nori sighed. "It's a wonder you have friends, all things considered. Or ever manage to get laid. How long's it been now?"

"People irritate me. A lot like you're doing right now. Did you have a point to any of this?" Thorin's shoulders hunched up, irritation and defensiveness rolled into one, before he forced himself to relax.

"I was trying to tell you, I've been talking to people. You've got some lovely neighbors. Try inviting them over for tea once in awhile. A bit nosy for my tastes, as neighbors go, but friendly enough. A bit like a herd of Doris. Now, they're fiercely protective of this Bilbo of yours."

Thorin didn't have time to protest the 'of yours' before Nori was steamrollering on.

"There's funny stories going around the whole Shire, about Bag-End—that's your flat, mate. Did you know it had a name? Bit of esoteric trivia for you," Nori sidetracked, and Thorin felt something niggle at the back of his mind. That sign he'd put in storage had said Bag-End, hadn't it? 14B, B for Baggins, Green had said. Maybe the B was for Bag-End too.

"Anyway," Nori said. "Everyone thinks Bag-End is haunted. That's why Sackville lowered the rent 'til you took it. Every time someone came to view the place, something eerie would happen."

"It's probably just the neighbors fucking up Sackville-Baggins' efforts. Their dislike is palpable." Thorin said, and thought of his boys and the scones, which Green seemed determined to sneak into Thorin's kitchen.

"Maybe. They didn't act self-satisfied, or shifty either."

"So they're good actors."

"The entire population of the Shire," Nori deadpanned.

"Why not? What are the so-called eerie happenings?" he asked.

"Rooms suddenly going icy," Nori said.

"The place is air-conditioned."

Nori huffed a laugh. "Alright. Books flying off the shelves. Alarm clock going off at random times. Oven turning on, fridge opening and the like."

"Yeah, some of the neighbors could never have rigged those incredibly supernatural events at all," Thorin said flatly, and tried to ignore his flicker of uneasiness. "There is no scientific evidence whatsoever to explain those acts of pure magic. Not whole legions of reality shows to debunk ghosts—"

"I'm not saying the place is haunted," Nori defended. "I'm telling you what the neighbors said, and they seemed genuine enough, and I'm good at reading people if I say so myself."

"So it was only a few neighbors. God knows I can't keep Green out of here."

"Mr. Friendly Gossip and Scones Guy? That bastard! How dare he act friendly toward you. I wouldn't put up with that sort of shit if I was you, Thor," he said.

"Fuck off," Thorin said, and he pretended his voice sounded as gruff as he meant instead of plaintive.

"Yeah, yeah. So that's it. Things happened to spook off previous applicants. Between that and the hostile neighbors, Sackville couldn't fence the place for pennies. I'd guess the same would've happened to you had you gone to look at the place before signing the lease. The Shire doesn't want anyone but Dr. Baggins in Bag-End, and hell hath no fury like a community scorned and all that."

"Or I could be haunted," Thorin said derisively.

Nori's silence was palpably rolling its eyes. "I investigated, that's what I learned. That, and Green's been talking you up. Don't know what you did to earn his favor, but I'd keep it up if I was you, and stop bitching about the scones, whatever that's about."

"I can take care of things just fine," Thorin said.

"Yeah, if it wasn't for Green you'd be a dead man walking around that place, so mind your manners, as Dori'd say," Nori said. "I'm off. Got about three hours of sleep left to me before a meeting in the morning."

"You have a meeting at," Thorin glanced at the microwave clock, "six in the morning tomorrow."

"Best not ask," Nori said, and hung up.

Thorin looked around the kitchen, which was still mostly Bilbo's, because what was Thorin going to do with a kitchen? He'd used paper plates before he'd moved in. The biggest kitchen appliance he'd ever splurged on had been a coffee machine, and Bilbo's was still a better make. For all that Thorin's belongings now occupied the corners of this flat, he still felt like he was living in another man's home.

It was Thorin's, and it wasn't. It was Bilbo's, but Bilbo was gone.

Was Bilbo alive? Why would he have left? And if he'd died, what happened? Why did no one seem to know?

He sighed, picked up his cup of tea and headed up to bed. He wouldn't be able to sleep, but he could read for awhile. With a quick detour through the study he grabbed up Bilba Myrtle's _Forge and Anvil_ , the first of her—of Bilbo's—blacksmith romance series.

When he moved to set his tea down on the nightstand he found a simple cork coaster lying beside the lamp. He was certain he hadn't put it there.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you'd like to contact me (with questions or just to chat), you can message me on Tumblr. (kaavyawriting.tumblr.com)


	11. A Detective Inspector

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've updated the tags with: mentions of depression, mentions of mental illness. Both are only lightly touched on, but I want to warn for them for anyone who might find these issues triggering!

"So what'd you want to whine about?" Dwalin asked, elbowing past Thorin into the entrance hall.

"Whine," Thorin said, disdainful, and kicked the door shut behind him. They were lifelong acquaintances, an unfortunate circumstance of being cousins in Thorin's opinion, and they were well past such things as greetings and niceties.

"You texted for a coffee." He slung off his jacket, a ratty leather thing that'd seen more bars and side alleys in the last ten years than Thorin cared to imagine, tossing it toward the couch as he looked around the living room with unrestrained curiosity. "So this is the place you've got everyone running around for. Thought it'd be more impressive."

"I texted for a beer," he grumbled, unaccountably irritated. Dwalin had that effect on him, so perhaps it wasn't that unaccountable, but Thorin suspected it had more to do with the innocuous white iPod he'd stumbled across this morning, tucked into the furthest corner of the sole junk drawer in the kitchen. One Thorin hadn't bothered to go through until this morning. The iPod was old and beat up, with scratches and what looked like dirt permanently rubbed into the keypad.

But Bilbo hated technology, with amusing depths of indignant fury. If his journals were anything to go by, phones, computers, anything electronic, all had a tendency to mysteriously combust around him.

Dwalin lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "I'm on duty." The unimpressed look shot over his shoulder informed Thorin that if he hadn't remembered that when he'd texted then he was a colossal idiot. "Where's this posh brewer of yours?"

Thorin glared ineffectively, following as Dwalin shoved his way into the kitchen. "Tell me you didn't come over just to see the coffeemaker."

Dwalin was already hovering over the machine. "Does espresso as well as standard drip, dedicated steamer," he noted, sounding impressed. "Top of the line, had to've paid a grand, easy. You don't deserve this."

"You came for the fucking coffee."

"Can I have it?"

" _No_."

"Bet you don't even know how to use it." He ran his hand down the side of it, and if Thorin didn't know him better, he would suspect his cousin of petting the thing like a cat.

"Do you need a moment?" he asked and smirked when Dwalin shot him a dark look. "As it happens, I drink coffee every day."

"So fire it up."

"You're the one who wants a cup."

Dwalin turned away from the coffeemaker to lean against the counter, the gleam of avarice in his eye washing away to a considering look. "Dís said you've been complaining about it every chance you get."

"The coffeemaker," Thorin deadpanned. "I think I'd recall that."

"The flat." Dwalin rolled his eyes.

Thorin made a face. "Since when do you talk to Dís without my running interference?"

"Since you slunk off to New York?" Dwalin paused thoughtfully. "Or maybe since college. Hard to say. The interesting thing is, she told me someone's coming in to make coffee."

Thorin cast him a narrow look before he sighed. "Yeah. The maintenance guy, I suspect. He was close to the previous tenant, which is the reason I called you, not my damn coffeemaker."

"The maintenance guy? Want me to run a check on him or what?"

"No." Thorin snapped, annoyed. "I can handle one guy with personal boundary issues. The flat, the previous tenant—"

"If this is about me not helping move your furniture, you do know you weren't actually supposed to have to move things into a _fully furnished_ apartment, yeah?"

"All Bilbo's stuff was so… frilly," Thorin objected, momentarily derailed. He pretended he wasn't complaining at all, and ignored that Bilbo's furniture hadn't been frilly, exactly. Occasionally antiquated, and drowning in books, but the only truly "frilly" things had been those damn doilies, and the alarming number of plants. The calligraphy. The occasional set of floral bedclothes.

"Bilbo?" was all Dwalin responded with.

Thorin mentally kicked himself for the blunder. "Bilbo Baggins," he amended quickly. "Dr. Bilbo Baggins. The person I wanted to talk to you about, not the maintenance guy, or moving in, or my coffeemaker. Now if you would stop questioning me like one of your suspects and listen for five minutes?"

Thorin only realized it as he said it; that was exactly what Dwalin was doing, poking at Thorin like a suspect he knew was lying. What had Dís been saying? He shot his cousin a suspicious glare, but Dwalin only nodded, his jaw locked with his own brand of stubbornness. "Nori's been snooping around—" Thorin began.

" _Nori_ ," Dwalin broke out, scowling fiercely. Thorin arched an eyebrow in amusement, regaining his own equilibrium as Dwalin's crumbled. Dwalin had been trying to arrest Nori for years, but he'd only ever pinned petty crimes on the PI, and nothing ever stuck.

He wasn't sure himself that Nori ever committed anything worse than pickpocketing in the name of his work, but he wouldn't have been surprised if he had.

"Long story," Thorin said, trying not to grin at Dwalin's outraged expression. "Dori and Nori were over helping with furniture—"

"Dori," Dwalin snarled. He didn't like the eldest Risen much better. Dori _was_ one of the best lawyers in town, and Dwalin blamed Dori for lending his skills to Nori on the few occasions anything ever went to the courts. "I knew you were pissed I didn't help, but that's going too far."

Thorin rolled his eyes. "Yes, I asked Nori over to spite you for refusing to shove furniture around, because you are the center of the universe. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Ori being friends with my boys, not remotely. Or that three people putting furniture together goes a hell of a lot faster than one person. Three times faster, in fact, if you want a little math to go with your cup of coffee."

"Of course I'm the center of the universe," Dwalin said with a perfectly straight face, but he mellowed a little, shoulders sinking back down from their righteous position around his ears, like some deranged, puffed-up bird. "And I've not got coffee yet, seeing as you've not been arsed to make it."

"So they were over and I was explaining—"

"Coffee," Dwalin interrupted.

Thorin was perfectly content to ignore him. "I was explaining that—"

"Complaining, you mean."

" _Explaining_ why a call from my landlady had… unsettled me, and Nori shoved his nose into things like he always does."

"And you've sensibly come to me to get him out of your hair. That's what this is." Dwalin nodded, looking torn between grim satisfaction and dogged hopefulness. "You've got him on something juicy. Broke into your landlady's? Stole something?"

"Hate to break your heart and all, but no."

Dwalin's palpable disappointment almost made Thorin feel bad. That didn't stop him from smirking when Dwalin deflated, a sulky scowl coming to his face. "Alright, what'd the thief find?"

Thorin didn't smile and he finally, reluctantly, stepped over to the coffeemaker, shoving Dwalin out of the way to start it up. "Bilbo Baggins, the previous owner of the Shire Apartments, the previous owner of my place, he died. Nori says there's no body."

Dwalin snorted. "You mean he's seeing conspiracies everywhere."

"Maybe." Thorin shrugged, and jabbed the start button harder than necessary. "The death certificate got pushed through in months. Nori's probably barking up the wrong tree, but I thought you'd be interested."

Dwalin's tone of voice said he was rolling his eyes, though Thorin wasn't looking at him. "Oh yeah, interested in whatever harebrained scheme that thief has gotten involved in now. You know he's winding you up."

"Sometimes I think you're so whiny about—"

"Whiny!"

"—Nori because he's as good as you are at smelling out trouble. Better maybe."

"Better! Get off it. He only smells trouble because he causes most of it."

"Your jealousy disturbs me, Dwalin. If only you'd shove him up against a wall and fuck already." Thorin sighed, ignoring the way Dwalin started spluttering and cursing. "I knew I'd have to rely on Nori's sketchy work."

"I see what you're doing," Dwalin snapped, when he'd wound down and stopped listing inventive ways to murder Thorin. Dwalin saw a number of gruesome crime scenes as a detective, which left him more inventive than most.

"Making you your fucking coffee?" he inquired politely, digging out two mugs from the cupboard. The one he'd used that morning was already washed and placed back on the shelf. Thorin hadn't cleaned it. He paused only a second at seeing it before grabbing it off the shelf.

"Being a manipulative little fuck. No doubt learned from that twerp you call a brother."

"Frerin's your cousin too," Thorin defended, and grinned despite his irritable mood.

"Aye, unfortunately." When Thorin turned around he caught Dwalin leaning back against the counter again, watching him with his suspicious detective look back in place. "What bug's up your arse anyway?"

"I told you," Thorin said, slamming the mugs down beside the coffeemaker. "There's milk in the fridge, and sugar in the canister behind you."

"Oh right, of course you're this pissy because some guy you never met might not be dead." Dwalin scoffed. "Afraid he'll snatch your posh flat back from you?"

" _No_ ," he said, a little more empathically than he meant to. From the half-satisfied, half-appraising look Dwalin was inflicting him with, he'd been a lot more emphatic than he'd meant. "No," he said again, controlling his tone more carefully. "I … just want to know, alright?"

When Dwalin kept staring, Thorin felt compelled to add, "It wouldn't be great to have a murderer for a landlady."

"Nothing to do with this Bilbo Baggins then." It was clear Dwalin didn't believe that for a second.

Thorin leaned against the island opposite Dwalin and settled himself to go to war with his cousin. "Obviously it does. His being murdered or not, it's hard not to be about him." At Dwalin's disappointed look, Thorin rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Did you hope I'd deny it?"

"Hope's a bit strong. Expect, more like." Dwalin crossed his own arms, and hooked one ankle over the other. "Dís said you've been a bit distracted by Baggins' things lately."

"I bet she said nothing of the sort," Thorin muttered. It was likelier she'd been a lot more verbal and less polite in her descriptions.

Dwalin grinned. "We-ell."

"I don't want to know," Thorin said firmly. He dragged his fingers through his hair, pulling it away from his face. "People around the apartments think this place is haunted," he admitted.

Dwalin barked a short laugh. "You're kidding." When Thorin didn't answer, his mirth melted away and he gave Thorin a sharp look. "You don't buy into it, do you?"

"No," Thorin said, emphatic all over again, a kneejerk reaction more than anything else. "No. But weird shit happens around here all the time."

Dwalin rolled his eyes. "Weird shit happens everywhere all the time."

"Someone makes coffee. And scones. Does the dishes. Moves coasters around all over the place—"

"Do you bother using them?"

Thorin groaned. "Are you serious?"

"Nothing wrong with looking after your furniture."

"You're joking."

Dwalin snorted. "You _don't_. Fuck's sake, coz, maybe if you'd bother using them whoever wouldn't keep shuffling them around your flat."

"You," Thorin snapped, "are supposed to be a detective inspector, and you're more concerned with my not using coasters than someone coming into my flat who knows how often."

"You said it was your maintenance guy and that you would handle it. Who'm I to stick my nose in?"

Thorin growled. "I fucking hate you."

"Yeah, me too," Dwalin said breezily. "So, are you haunted or is someone breaking in? You seem confused on that point."

Thorin glared. "I don't know."

Dwalin's eyebrow arched to meet his nonexistent hairline. 

"I don't, Dwalin," Thorin said, for a rare moment in his life completely earnest. "It's getting harder to ignore the strangeness. But the last time anything strange was supposedly going on…" Thorin's thoughts shifted to his grandfather.

Dwalin's mien softened. "If your burglar's bringing up unpleasant memories—"

"He's not," Thorin objected immediately. "I'm fine. I just feel… off-kilter, lately. Since speaking with Nori."

Dwalin snorted. "You need to do _something_ about it, sooner rather than later."

Thorin made a face. "I know." At Dwalin's skeptical look he added, "I will. Soon."

Dwalin huffed, and launched himself up from his slouch. "Right. Well, I'll look into Nori's supposed conspiracy. See what it turns up. Maybe it'll lead to something I can arrest him for."

"For fuck's sake, just fuck him already," Thorin grumbled, and grunted when Dwalin punched him in the arm. "Aren't you staying for your precious coffee?"

Dwalin gifted him with an unimpressed look. "You don't deserve that brewer. I've got a load of your shit in my car. DVDs. Your telescope. Your sword, and you're only getting that back because Balin's nagging about it. Come help me haul everything up. The coffee'll be ready by then."

~*~

"You don't get along with any of your friends, do you?" Bilbo mused, watching the door Dwalin had just exited. A friend of Thorin's, a detective inspector, and someone Thorin wanted to look into Bilbo's "death."

The sensation in Bilbo's chest was strange and expansive, and it took him second to realize it was hope.

Thorin, of course, did not answer him. Instead he grumbled to himself and headed upstairs. Bilbo lingered behind to clear the coffee mugs from the sink, preoccupied with Dwalin's visit.

Thorin had got that Nori fellow to look into Bilbo's disappearance, he'd said. Bilbo hadn't known that. He must have missed that discussion, perhaps when Bilbo had been looking after the boys when they painted the bedroom.

And now Dwalin would be looking into his disappearance, a proper policeman. …insofar as Dwalin struck as the proper sort.

And Thorin… Well, Thorin was _concerned_ about Bilbo, about what had happened to him, even though he wasn't certain Bilbo was alive at all. After all, why should he? Bilbo _was_ haunting him, barring that bit where he wasn't actually a ghost; he was nevertheless doing a spectacular imitation of one. It was no wonder Thorin thought Bilbo was probably dead, given the situation.

Despite that, despite thinking Bilbo was dead, Thorin still cared. It was really very sweet, and Bilbo was certain his heart was doing dreadfully unhealthy flips with his stomach. Olympic gymnastics even. He'd not felt so touched since Frodo used his allowance money to fly home to see him. (Not that that was a good thing to be proud of, but really, how many uncles had nephews so clever they talked their way into buying a ticket and boarding a plane without parental supervision? And all because Frodo missed him? It was quite possibly the sweetest thing Frodo had ever done. Bilbo still scolded himself blue for it.)

But Thorin's conversation with Dwalin still nagged at him, and the warm feeling of hope dimmed in his chest as guilt welled up in its place. Thorin might care, but Bilbo's presence was still disturbing him. Upsetting him, and more than Thorin simply becoming irritated with Holman. Even more than worry someone was regularly breaking in, though that was a serious enough concern, wasn't it? Bilbo was making Thorin feel… what was the word Thorin used? Off-kilter.

Bilbo was unsettling him. He supposed he should have expected that, given the haunting situation. Haunting in the not-dead sense of the definition. But Thorin had never struck Bilbo as troubled by it. Angry, irritated, flummoxed, but not troubled.

_Botheration_. Bilbo always got things wrong. He just wanted to help, in what little ways he could, few as those were.

Bilbo sighed, and put the freshly washed coffee mugs back in their proper places before wandering out to the living room.

He grimaced at the state of the room, muttering to himself, "A sword. In my living room. _On my couch_." He eyed it resentfully. It was one frustration piled on top of another today.

There was also a spectacularly large telescope newly wedged out on the balcony, and three new boxes of paraphernalia tucked beside the coffee table. All Bilbo could see were visions of his own things being packed away and marched down to storage, in the damp and dark, like exiles.

He made his way upstairs, curious to see what work Thorin had thrown himself into now, and hoping for a distraction from his growing disquiet, but what came out when he stepped through the study door was,

"You left your bloody sword on my chair."

That was when he caught sight of Thorin sitting at his desk holding Bilbo's old iPod, flipping it in his hands like it was the greatest mystery on all the Earth. It'd been a gift from Holman, several birthdays ago, when Bilbo had complained about his walkman breaking whilst gardening. Holman considered Bilbo's lack of technological knowhow to be the greatest tragedy of the Shire, including Mr. Cotton's garish plaid trouser addiction down in 6C.

Thorin had the earbuds on and was making a face at the old, cracked screen.

"Don't tell me you're a man who hates Mozart," Bilbo said, and rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"He listened to," Thorin peered down at the screen, "Children of Bodom? What the fuck?"

"…oh." Bilbo cleared his throat. "In fact, I've found heavy metal is very good for gardening."

"Christ." Thorin jerked the earbuds out. "I don't believe it."

Bilbo felt ruffled by that single sentence, Thorin's tone so utterly disbelieving Bilbo could feel his ire rising like a quick tide. "Come now, it can't be that shocking. Surely you listen to metal all the time. Just because I also happen to like books and gardening and such does not mean I can't be partial to 'edgy' music." Bilbo was getting so indignant as Thorin's mutinous expression intensified that he made air-quotes with his fingers. He stared at his own hands hanging there in the air for a second, startled, then he immediately dropped his arms to his sides. "Blast it, would you just get your sword off my furniture?"

"How could he stand it?" Thorin wheeled through the songs on the iPod. "Classical's bad enough, but metal? It's just grating _noise_."

Bilbo blinked. "You don't listen to..? Oh."

Thorin grumbled to himself, and tossed the iPod on his desk. "He didn't even like computers."

Bilbo felt about the biggest idiot on the planet. He was always complaining about Thorin's perceptions of him, and here he was making equally ignorant assumptions, and after weeks of living with him too. He should certainly know better. And all after Thorin showed him such kindness, while not even knowing Bilbo was there. He appraised the man at his desk. "What do you like to listen to then, Thorin Durinson?"

All he got in response was silence.

But that night, Thorin dug out about two dozen jazz CDs from one of his as-yet-unpacked boxes.

~*~

Thorin couldn't get over it.

No matter how long he thought about it—all day, at this point—nothing about it made sense. For reasons Thorin didn't know and couldn't figure out, Bilbo had an iPod full of nothing but classical and heavy metal.

Bilbo hated technology.

And if Thorin was honest with himself, he kept getting stuck on _metal_. It didn't suit Bilbo at all. Classical, Thorin could have guessed that without thinking. Even _classic_ : Springsteen, Elvis, Queen. Thorin could buy that. But Children of Bodom?

Metallica?

Megadeth?

Whose iPod was it? Because it sure as hell couldn't have been Bilbo's. Was it a friend's? A lover's? He had the irrational desire to go ask Green about it, not that he could put his finger on why.

Between the iPod and Dwalin's visit and the reminder of Nori's findings, Thorin was having a bad day. What Bilbo always called 'one cup' days in his journals, marking out his moods like critics rate hotels.

Thorin liked the idea of it, rating days. It was charming, in the way Bilbo's self-effacing talent was charming. In the way his apparent collection of metal was … fine, not charming, but curious. In a distracting, almost irritating way.

Something in those journals, the moments in every entry dedicated to Bilbo's struggle with sadness—depression, he suspected, though Bilbo had never put the word to paper—made Thorin think he would find in Bilbo an understanding ear if he confessed his own experiences. Not understanding in that false manner, the pitying kind, full of shallow sympathy and complete ignorance when it came to dealing with mental illness.

Not that Thorin ever willingly spoke about his family's history. He wasn't inclined to, not with anyone. He could barely stand discussing Thror with family, and they'd all faced his decline together. Thorin suspected he remembered it better than Dís or even Frerin, and it left fear gripping his chest, the constant reminder that he could lose his faculties, or that his siblings could lose theirs. One day any one of them could wake up not entirely themselves anymore, and that scared the hell out of him. They all carried the genes, after all, didn't they?

And his gut told him Bilbo would get it. If Thorin ever wanted to confide in Bilbo, he would understand.

…would have understood. Bilbo was gone. Thorin was imagining dumping his problems on a dead man. A dead stranger, no less. It was more than a little pathetic, and that irritated him all the more.

Thorin suspected the only reason he was considering any of it at all was Dwalin's visit, Nori's findings, all of it colliding together to remind him of Thror. Thorin's increasingly inappropriate interest in Bilbo or Bilbo's opinions or Bilbo's _understanding_ were all on his mind because Thror was on his mind, and some part of him was wondering if he'd finally lost his mind.

He hadn't. Nori's call confirmed any such fears were ludicrous. Thorin's neighbors thought his flat was haunted; which at least meant, haunted or not, anything happening was an external force, nothing to do with his mind.

It was a relief. One Thorin hadn't realized had been weighing on him until Dwalin's visit.

It was Green, or another neighbor, someone real at any rate, breaking into his flat and messing with things. Even if they were strange things, like bringing scones. Or doing his dishes. Whoever it was, Thorin would catch them and deal with it then. Dwalin was right, Thorin needed to take steps to sort it, and he would.

Ironically, Bilbo's damn iPod bothered Thorin most of all. The music, the nagging sense Bilbo listened to metal of all things, and the idea that Thorin had misread him so completely.

It was becoming increasingly apparent Thorin really did want to understand Bilbo, to _know_ him, and that wasn't possible.

As evening settled in, Thorin gave up on working and dug out his own music, all his jazz, and settled with one of Bilbo's books. One of the romances this time.

Bilbo's—Bilba Mrytle's—romances were flowery, with a penchant for dramatic plots and acrobatic sex, everything about them highly improbable and hanging on the thinnest of pretenses. In other words, they were like every other romance novel known to mankind, if slightly better written than any Thorin had read before, which were more than he was willing to acknowledge.

And Thorin would never admit to anyone how much he enjoyed them—Bilbo's, not romances in general. 

There wasn't a single living person who would let him live it down.

It took him about halfway through the second book, _Sparks of Winter_ , to realize he'd read something of this series before, because he recognized Crispin, the jaded blacksmith that blew into the small town on the cliffs of Moher.

Crispin was a fallen clan lord who'd sentenced himself to exile, not that that was revealed in this book. He was a side character in _Sparks of Winter_ , someone who barely registered on the page beyond being marked out as 'dark and brooding.' There was a fourth book in the series, focused on him. Thorin had read it, years ago, when it'd been recommended as a well executed gay romance, a rare volume in the predominantly straight series. It'd formed a surprisingly intense cult following due to that.

Thorin had thought he'd heard the name Bilba Myrtle before, when he'd first unearthed the romances buried in Bilbo's office, but he'd written it off as something he'd seen in one of the journals before he'd realized Bilba was a penname.

But no, he'd read that book. He'd even enjoyed that book. Something about the two main characters. Crispin, the dramatically stoic blacksmith with a tragic past, and… what had his name been? John? No… Sean?

Seán, the kindhearted village healer, who also possessed a tragic past, because it was a cliché romance.

Thorin dragged himself off the couch and up to his office, flicking the lights on absently as he went. The book had to be in Bilbo's collection. Bilbo kept a copy of everything he published, in true fashion to his obsession with books.

He ran his hands long the spines of Bilbo's works, skipping past the journals, the fantasy, skimming the titles. There. _Forged Fascination_ , with cheesy protagonists staring heatedly at each other in loose, unlaced period shirts, backlit by what Thorin could only assume was supposed to be a forge.

The dedication read, _To my diplomat, who has accepted full blame for Crispin._

'My diplomat' was Bilbo's nickname for Erestor. Crispin was based off _Erestor_ , the law degree who read almost as prim and proper as Bilbo? The man who Bilbo flirted with every time they fell into each other's orbit? Thorin couldn't picture it, not at all. Erestor was another Bilbo, at best. He was a Seán, not a Crispin.

Thorin somewhat grumpily settled against the headboard, opening the book to chapter one.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry for the terribly late update! I had this chapter mostly written, then realized after the fact that everything was completely wrong for this point in the story. So I ended up rewriting it a few times. Basically 'killing time' and I have been duking it out for weeks, and I think I've finally won. This round. *knocks on all available wood*
> 
> Thank you to both [lilithiumwords](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithiumwords/pseuds/lilithiumwords) and [furorscribiendi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Furorscribiendi/pseuds/Furorscribiendi) for listening to me fret while I fought with this chapter, and for betaing it when it was finally finished! <3


	12. The Faux-Plant

A week later Bilbo discovered Thorin took Dwalin's "do something about your burglar" advice to heart. He installed a camera.

One of those "discreet" cameras-in-teddy-bears, whatever they were called. Spy cameras? That sounded absurd, like they were in a Fleming novel. Hidden cameras? _That_ sounded like one of those dreadful shop dressing room horror stories.

Whatever it was called, at least it wasn't in a teddy bear, which would have felt insulting enough to Bilbo's intelligence. Instead the camera was tucked away in a small potted _plastic_ plant that almost gave Bilbo a heart attack from sheer temper when he first saw it. He'd been sure Thorin had gotten rid of all Bilbo's lovely, thriving, _real_ plants only to buy an obviously silk-and-plastic horror for the kitchen.

And if that'd been the case… Well. Bilbo would not allow such a… _thing_ in his home. It was bad enough doctors felt some bizarre necessity in putting faux-plants around their offices, entirely unwelcome, dissatisfying replicas of living things. They might as well have propped wax-figure humans about the office and called them patients.

No, a plastic plant would absolutely not stand. It wouldn't be allowed to survive a single day in Bilbo's own flat.

Then Bilbo had the questionable pleasure of watching Thorin pluck the plant right out of its faux-ceramic pot—because naturally even the pot had to be plastic—and instead of seeing faux-soil surrounding faux-roots or whatever nonsense Bilbo expected to find, he'd instead been faced with… well, with a heavy metallic base and wires twisting up beneath the little plant's stem.

It was a camera.

At least that was better than a faux-plant for the sake of … whatever were faux-plants for? Decoration? The notion alone made Bilbo cringe.

A camera was annoying, but not nearly so annoying as a plastic plant. A camera, he could live with. The fake plant would have been chucked off the balcony the moment Thorin walked out the door.

There was a chance Bilbo would have been more offended by the camera if he hadn't been distracted by the plant in the first place. In fact, he was quite sure of that, but now that the plant crisis was averted—Thorin's taste was not so hideous as to decorate Bilbo's flat with such monstrosities—well. Bilbo could deal with a camera. He could deal with almost anything, when it came to it.

He couldn't deal with a plastic plant.

The camera-plant still needed to go, of course. It was still a fake, plastic plant sitting in Bilbo's beloved flat. But at least Bilbo understood why it was there. He eyed it resentfully, where it sat innocently on the dining table. Thorin had angled it so the large center flower—a sunflower! Of all things! Didn't Thorin know _anything_ about plants?—faced the kitchen, and now that Bilbo knew to look for it, he could see the small, reflective glass lens peeking out from the center.

Bilbo should have found the cursed thing suspicious immediately. He felt a bit dim for failing to notice it. Bilbo was less than impressed: with himself, with Thorin, with the current state of his life in general.

And he was kicking himself a little, because he should have seen the camera coming, shouldn't he? He had caught Thorin's attention a little too much, and Bilbo knew it too. Hadn't he been there while Dwalin prodded Thorin while petting Bilbo's coffee machine a little too affectionately for Bilbo's sanity?

Bilbo _had_ been getting rather… active about the flat. It was all in the name of good; helpful, friendly Casper, that was Bilbo. (Except his name was Bilbo, as Casper was quite a ridiculous name, thank-you. Oh, and he _wasn't dead_.) And yet…

Perhaps he shouldn't have committed himself to quite so much cleaning, and putting coasters around the flat seemed to have offended Thorin quite exceptionally. Honestly, what was the man's grievance against coasters? He left more coffee rings than anyone had any right to.

Then there was all the baking, but Bilbo rather felt Thorin should appreciate that. Scones were always a nice accompaniment to one's morning. Or a muffin. Some toast and jam. Not that Bilbo baked fresh every morning, but Thorin had stopped going to that little corner bakery he'd frequented in the first weeks of moving in, ever since the second batch of scones appeared on his counter five days after the fiasco with Thorin, his nephews, and Bilbo's first scones. Bilbo felt the curl of satisfaction at the implication Thorin preferred his bakery—his was certainly better than that rubbish bakery down the street—so Bilbo felt obliged to keep Thorin supplied.

And of course, Bilbo had taken to making coffee every morning now. Since Bilbo had gotten in the habit of making it some mornings, he felt it was a little rude to skip others. It felt like a tease, a caffeine lead-on. Bilbo was not that sort of fellow.

It wasn't too difficult, but it was exhausting at the same time. Bilbo had the sinking feeling it was growing more exhausting as time passed, instead of getting easier as he had hoped, but for all that it was also simple. Baking had always been a simple matter to Bilbo, and a comforting hobby at that. He adjust to the expenditure of energy, to the pervasive tiredness. After all, he was already adjusting to baking in his … condition.

That was, if Bilbo could work around this new development. The fake plant camera business. He frowned at it a little harder, eyeing the awful thing sitting on his dining table.

No doubt Thorin wouldn't take the hint at all if Bilbo did just lob it off the balcony. And when it came to it, Bilbo really needed Thorin to become a little more attuned to his surroundings, or Bilbo was going to run out of flour soon enough.

He supposed he could borrow some off Holman when that day came, but he didn't relish the notion of traipsing through half the building with a floating bowl of flour. Nor of becoming the burglar Thorin named him and stealing from his neighbor. It all sounded exhausting and not a little vexing, and he didn't want to frighten elderly Mr. Goodfoot down the hall from Holman anyway, who was always peering out his peephole, on a perpetual quest to discover who stole his newspapers.

What he really needed was to tell Thorin to buy flour, but he needed to manage it without scaring the man to death, _and_ keep Thorin from outright dismissing him.

If he just put the items he needed on Thorin's grocery list… Surely Thorin would take the hint. Or not. In all likelihood that was exactly the sort of thing Thorin would ignore. Assuming Bilbo could figure out how to get it on his list in the first place, which he doubted; Thorin kept his grocery list on his phone, one of those horrible smartphones, and even when tangible Bilbo had been positively awful with technology.

Which was entirely off the point, the point being the offending camera Bilbo was currently staring at, arms crossed, bare foot tapping in a vague, ghostly fashion against the floor. He frowned at it, feeling more than a little cross with Thorin.

He wanted to wash the breakfast dishes Thorin had left in the sink, now that the resident architect was off to… wherever it was architects went on workdays. 

The thing of it was, Bilbo wasn't sure he wanted to get caught. If he did the dishes, the camera would tell Thorin there was most certainly an invisible entity haunting his home. That would be a plus for Bilbo, wouldn't it?

On the other hand, Thorin would know, but he wouldn't know at all, not _really_ , not where it counted. Thorin would think Bilbo was a ghost at best, or a trick at worst, like he already did. He wouldn't know it was _Bilbo_ , that he was alive and accounted for, more or less.

Ultimately, what would Thorin do about any of it? What _could_ he do?

Nothing.

Of course, there was the simple fact that Thorin's paranoid, irascible camera-installing attitude annoyed Bilbo like mad. He was considering leaving the dishes undone for spite alone. He knew that didn't say anything particularly flattering about himself, but there it was.

But Bilbo really needed flour.

Bilbo's frown mellowed a little as he thought, and slowly he began studying the camera with renewed interest. Well. There was a thought

~*~

Thorin knew Dwalin was right. He had to do something about Green—or whoever—breaking into his flat.

Making coffee and scones in the morning was one thing. One really weird thing. It was kind, Thorin wouldn't deny that, but it was still weird, and still wrong. He kept reminding himself of that, even though the scones had proven delicious, and the coffee superior to anything Thorin managed to brew in the machine he swore was more torture device than useful percolator.

But there were the coasters, which kept turning up on every surface that could remotely be considered a good place for a mug. He'd taken that in stride for awhile, offensive as the implication was. He didn't need to use a coaster if he didn't damn well want to.

And someone had to have put up his shelves, because Thorin hadn't done it.

And the _cleaning_. Christ, it was never-ending. Thorin was sure someone was dusting, and more than once he'd left for errands with his bed unmade and the dishes in the sink only to come home to find everything straightened and washed.

It was like a very quiet, discreet cleaning service.

It was disturbing as all hell.

But the journals, that was the fucking limit.

Green—or whoever—had taken to marking out pages with extra bookmarks that Thorin _knew_ had not been in the journal the night before, as though marking entries they—the ever mysterious, ever irritating 'they'—thought Thorin would be interested in. As if they knew anything about Thorin. As if they had any right to rifle through Bilbo's things.

It had to stop. Breaking into people's flats was illegal. Disturbing. Annoying.

Definitely annoying. Not remotely thoughtful or kind. Certainly not intriguing. Thorin was not some soppy detective protagonist in an equally soppy romance thriller, destined to fall madly and stupidly in love with his own personal burglar. That the notion even entered his head at all, if only to be scoffed at and kicked out a second later, told Thorin he was reading a few too many of Myrtle's romances.

So after a great deal of understandable griping about his sister's gossiping with Dwalin, Thorin installed a nanny-cam. (Dís had the nerve to call it _whining_ , and then proclaimed she and Dwalin 'chatted' every week.) It was Dís' idea, no doubt cooked up while she and Dwalin _gossiped_ behind his back, but whatever his sister claimed Thorin would have thought of it himself. Eventually.

At least now he would finally figure out who was breaking in. For fuck's sake, the sharp little remarks they made with the coasters and the dishes. The dusting. Thorin could do what he wanted with his own furniture, and if he wanted to leave dirty bowls on his counter and water rings on his nightstand then it was his own damn business.

The scones were still nice. Those Irish cream ones from Thursday morning. And the raspberry muffins with the sugar crumble on top from last week.

Thorin mentally kicked himself. Scones did not make break-ins acceptable.

Even really good scones. Possibly the best scones Thorin ever recalled tasting.

So when he got home the first afternoon after getting the camera installed and smelled the pervasive scent of bakery, he quickly tossed his keys on the side table and checked the kitchen to find a plate of fresh scones laid out beside the plant-camera on the dining table. He smirked at them and went to check the camera feed.

About three minutes after that, Thorin cursed a blue streak. He didn't know whether to laugh or throw the damn thing out the window.

The camera feed showed the large workspace of Thorin's kitchen, empty and mostly clean, just as Thorin had left it this morning: used mug by the coffee pot, plate by the sink. Thorin's own form stepped in front of it, glanced around the kitchen then left the room as he headed out for the consult meeting he had scheduled. The glowing clock on the oven marked it as thirty-seven past eight in the morning.

Then the camera blinked, going black for a split second before turning back on. The kitchen was clean. Spotlessly clean: the mug was gone, the plate and knife by the sink vanished, even the crumbs had been meticulously swept away. The clock declared it to be eight minutes to ten.

Someone had turned the camera off.

Thorin's pesky little burglar knew it was there.

He cursed under his breath. Then the camera blinked black again only to turn back on. The stove read just past eleven. There was Thorin's baking sheet—or Bilbo's, since Thorin didn't bake and would never buy such a thing, but had felt some strange obligation to keep a few of the kitchen necessities around no matter how useless he found them—with two neat rows of scone dough lined on it.

Then it blinked again, and at fifteen past eleven there were freshly baked scones sitting on the baking sheet.

In the next blink, the scones were artistically laid out on a plate and set out on the kitchen table, the same plate Thorin had spotted on his arrival home. The tray and other dirty dishes were gone. The clock read fifteen to one by that time.

Thorin paused the playback and went to check the drawer under the double oven. The baking sheet was there. When he checked the cupboards, he found the plate and mug neatly put away. Everything had been cleaned and restored to their rightful places. He scowled at them before storming back to the feed.

When it started again, it went black for a second before showing the kitchen once more. This time it took a minute for Thorin to notice any change, because everything looked the same. Until he saw the flour on the counter.

Neat little piles of the white, powdery mess had been shaped to spell out 'buy flour.' The style of the letters was almost familiar in the way it swirled across the counter like tiny, organized snowdrifts, like Thorin knew the person who'd written it.

His burglar wanted him to buy flour.

He realized with a start what the nanny-cam had illustrated, what Thorin had been trying to ignore for weeks now, what his instinct told him was true. Not only was the camera completely useless—as it clearly was—but his mysterious burglar wasn't bringing bakery, he was making it here.

Exactly like Fíli had said: a tray floating in midair. The scent of someone baking.

Thorin had never really connected the dots before; he hadn't wanted to. His burglar was cooking in Thorin's flat. Cleaning it. Wandering through it. Practically living in it. Someone was moving through Thorin's flat like they lived there.

If Fíli's dream had been real, then had the floating tray he'd described been real? Nori's story that the flat was haunted. Bilbo's mysterious disappearance. Fíli's floating tray. For the first time Thorin wondered if he wasn't dealing with a burglar, but some sort of ghost after all.

The feed blinked out again and when it returned the counter had been swept clean of any flour.

Thorin frowned, then flicked the television off and went to yank the hidden camera from the kitchen. He would have to figure out a better way to hide it.

~*~

Bilbo smiled—very smugly, even he would have to admit—as he watched Thorin check over the camera feed. When the man stormed off, Bilbo's smile broadened into a proper grin and he left to check on his rooftop garden. Perhaps Holman would be there, and they could have a nice chat. Or Bilbo could have a nice gloat, a one-sided conversation with his dear friend. But whatever the case, the garden would certainly be a more peaceful place than the flat currently was, what with Thorin cursing under his breath and gearing up for a proper sulk.

But Bilbo hoped Thorin would buy flour, regardless of the way the request had been made.

~*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The wonderful and talented [alien-crustacean](http://alien-crustacean.tumblr.com/) created [fantastic art for this chapter](http://alien-crustacean.tumblr.com/post/110864862094/so-kaavyawriting-is-writing-this-great-story-im)! Go check it out, it's awesome! (It's a moving GIF, for anyone with internet speed concerns. :)


	13. The Garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halloween update, yay! This update has been so, so long in coming, and I apologize to everyone who has been waiting patiently for more. But I want to say that it is finally updated because of all of your amazing reviews and kudos, and I want to thank each of you so much for your words. I think any writer will tell you that feedback makes us go crazy with happiness, and every single review has inspired me. Thank you so much, and if you stick with me and this story after all this time, thank you for that too. <3
> 
> There's a long list of reasons why it's been a year (and I am shocked and frustrated with myself that it _has_ been a _year_ ), not least of all writer's block. I've had a constant dissatisfaction and frustration with this chapter, so it's been rewritten a dozen times over, but I think it's finally where it needs to be, and I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you to both [lilithiumwords](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithiumwords/pseuds/lilithiumwords) and [furorscribiendi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Furorscribiendi/pseuds/Furorscribiendi) for betaing, and for still cheering this story on after all this time! <3
> 
> And this is especially late on my part, but I want to share these beautiful things with everyone:
> 
> The wonderful and talented [alien-crustacean](http://alien-crustacean.tumblr.com/) created [fantastic art for the previous chapter](http://alien-crustacean.tumblr.com/post/110864862094/so-kaavyawriting-is-writing-this-great-story-im)! Go check it out, it's awesome! (It's a moving GIF, for anyone with internet speed concerns. :)
> 
> And [northerntrash](http://archiveofourown.org/users/northerntrash/pseuds/northerntrash) made two beautiful photo edits. The first is [here](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/118436307967/nts-fic-recs-12-im-killing-time-and-times), and the second is [here](http://northerntrash.tumblr.com/post/131755413322/nts-halloween-countdown-featuring-my-favourite). Aren't they gorgeous?

Thorin bought flour.

The man didn't do it with any hint of grace, as far as Bilbo could discern—he'd glared around the kitchen suspiciously, fiddled with the little camera for _hours_ as if that would tell him anything, and grumbled under his breath the entire time he'd put away groceries three days later, leaving the flour conspicuously on the countertop—but he did it. And he bought raspberries too.

When Bilbo had left the note in the flour… that had just been his way of getting Thorin's attention, of thumbing his nose at that irritating camera. But later he'd pointedly left the empty raspberry carton out in the hopes Thorin would take a subtler kind of hint. Thorin had. 

Thorin had also brought home a new bottle of Bailey's Irish whiskey, and Bilbo recalled how quickly the batch of Irish cream scones had disappeared. He was making his own hints about exactly what variety of bakery he wanted, and since it wasn't like Bilbo could indulge in his own favorites, he might as well cater to Thorin's.

…and of course the boys' favorites, when they visited. Fíli did so enjoy those almond cookies Bilbo had made. And Kíli, much to Bilbo's utter lack of surprise, always liked the chocolate desserts best.

Now that Bilbo knew Thorin was receptive to requests, he would have to add a few more ingredients to the shopping list. At least if he could figure out how without killing himself in the effort; the impossible man kept his grocery list on his smartphone of all things.

Bilbo did not consider the phone "smart." The cursed thing was in actuality dimwitted and problematic to Bilbo's ghostly existence in every possible manner.

And naturally, because the universe took great pleasure in annoying Bilbo, Thorin appeared to communicate solely through his phone or his computer. He hadn't even bothered to get the landline connected, not that Bilbo had anyone to call—or could if he wanted to. But that smartphone… It was a truly irritating device, one that Thorin rarely had out of his sights even if Bilbo could manipulate it—which he couldn't. It wasn't like Bilbo could ask to borrow it for a tick, could he? He was a ghost. A not-ghost. A not-dead ghost. A whatever-he-was, which meant technology hated him. Well, hated him more than it usually did.

Bilbo had never really been fond of technology in the first place. He was a man of books, of pen and ink. Of gardens and countertops. Bilbo was a hands-on person. Old fashioned, according to anyone who'd ever met him.

In Bilbo's defense, he'd had a computer to type up his manuscripts, once. It'd been a short relationship; he had simply always preferred writing longhand. Computers and phones and televisions all broke around Bilbo. More often than not, all he had to do was give a piece of the modern world a stern look and it would self-combust.

Being intangible hadn't improved his skill. Quite the opposite. It'd made it worse—something Bilbo had thought impossible until the day he'd poked at Thorin's phone in an effort to open one of the apps, and the screen fitzed and went fuzzy for a moment before blacking out entirely. He'd thought he'd broken the cursed thing until Thorin emerged from the shower—in nothing more than a towel, hair dripping rivulets of water that mapped his skin like a particularly fascinating map—and promptly picked up his phone to check his mail, like he couldn't help keeping himself connected every hour of the day. (Such obsession would have concerned Bilbo, except he had the niggling sense that he was the odd one out, out of sync with the rest of the world's agenda, and not just because he was currently intangible.)

The phone—shorted out from Bilbo's touch—had only been off, not broken, and though Thorin had been vexed, in that way he had of getting irritated when he was confused, nothing more came of it. It'd been a relief, that Bilbo hadn't broken the dratted thing, and he refused to touch it again.

He suspected his new level of technological … incompatibility had something to do with the way he manipulated energy to make things move, and how that interacted with electricity and things like touchscreens, but he wasn't sure. It wasn't really his field of interest—both the technical aspects of, well, technology, and paranormal activity, which he presumably was. Paranormal, that is.

Whatever the reason, Bilbo still needed another way to get a shopping list to the man, one that didn't require technology or the finesse pen and paper tended to require of him.

~*~

Thorin had taken to hiding that cursed camera around the flat, trying to find a place Bilbo wouldn't notice it and turn it off.

Apparently the camera didn't need to stay in the plastic plant. As soon as Bilbo learned that, said "plant" vanished mysteriously. Bilbo ensured its demise by taking it all the way down the hall to his floor's garbage chute. The faux-plant was never seen or heard from again, no matter how many times Thorin ducked to check under the dining table, or behind the sofa, or stuck his hand under the nearest bookshelf and felt around a bit. (These little actions of his did, however, continuously remind Bilbo how direly the flat needed a cleaning. Thorin didn't appear to even own a vacuum. Bilbo tried not to think on it, or he would need a lie-down. Another one.) 

As for the camera itself, Thorin kept putting it in new places, dressing it up in new disguises. Some of them were hideously, painfully obvious, to the point that Bilbo felt insulted. Not that the original faux-plant disguise hadn't been insulting, but that was insulting specifically because Bilbo was a gardener, and no gardener worth his dirt would tolerate such a caricature in their home!

The other incarnations of the spy camera, however… Honestly, didn't Thorin consider if Bilbo was going to spot the blasted thing in a plastic plant, he'd wonder about a suspiciously new teddy bear sitting on the coffee table? A hummel figurine in the study? For goodness sake, a _cookie tin_? Bilbo was not a fool, thank-you.

Not long after that, Thorin tried stuffing it between a pair of books in the living room. At first Thorin made to cut out a book to fit the camera into it, but Bilbo's alarm was extreme enough to accidentally jerk the book from Thorin's hands and knock it to the floor, where it conveniently slid beneath the bookshelf. Thorin went still, freezing like he was listening for something beyond hearing, then bent to collect Bilbo's collected works of Doyle and return the volume to its rightful place. It was the first, and last, attempt to place the camera there.

Bilbo would have thought it would be the last attempt to put the camera anywhere, that his haunting presence was finally too obvious to be dismissed, but Thorin seemed determined to ignore Bilbo's friendly haunting, and Bilbo was happy to let him.

Thorin believing in Bilbo's existence would mean change—likely for the worse—and Bilbo was not certain how much more change he could take, even if it would be nice to know someone knew he existed. That he was still alive. He had to be, didn't he?

Not that that mattered. Bilbo couldn't do anything about his ironically literal existential crisis.

What mattered was that Thorin kept hiding the camera, and Bilbo kept working around it. Bilbo had some control over this latest development. It was something he could handle. It was something that made him feel a little realer, even if it reminded him he was, in fact, still a ghost, separate from the rest of the world. It added a new, almost spirited turn to their relationship. No pun intended.

Bilbo mostly only turned it off when he needed to get something or other done, like the dishes or the dusting—two things he was doing less and less of as the days slipped by, if only to preserve a little of his waning energy—or bookmarking entries for Thorin to find in Bilbo's journals. Turning the camera off wasn't difficult. It wasn't like he needed to handle any of the electric bits of the dratted thing. All he had to do was will a little energy into flicking the plastic switch on the side.

That first day avoiding the camera with the flour and the scones had been Bilbo making a point.

Or being annoyed.

Both.

Thorin was so very annoying, after all, even if Bilbo was forced to admit the man had grown on him—grown on him like lichen. Or a particularly vibrant checkered print. Or a work of art that was as disturbing as it was beautiful. One of those unsettling, obnoxious things one couldn't help liking, but one wasn't sure one actually wanted _around_.

Now though, Bilbo would bloody well keep playing with the camera until Thorin stopped insulting Bilbo's intelligence. Really, a _cookie tin_. As if Thorin even knew what one was for.

So the camera kept moving, and Bilbo kept turning it off when he worked, and he was really getting dreadfully weary of the entire affair, even if it had turned into an oddly amusing form of hide and seek.

Bilbo had the upper hand of being able to tail Thorin without his knowledge, and he only considered that might be cheating for a few minutes before he ignored the little voice of his conscience. Bilbo felt, given all of the facts, that he had been dealt the shorter hand in the grand scheme of things, and that was that.

And whatever Thorin had hoped for when he'd bought the thing, it all came to naught. The camera had little effect on their routine.

Bilbo still cleaned and made coffee in the mornings, and when the pastry ran out he baked fresh during the night. He checked on his garden, and on Holman. Thorin still worked in the mornings and afternoons; sometimes at home, sometimes out in the world. When he was home, Bilbo gravitated toward him like a foolish puppy, which he most assuredly was not.

Thorin still sorted through Bilbo's things, spending evenings going through his journals. On increasingly frequent weekends, his nephews still came by and acted like adorable little hooligans. And Bilbo…

Bilbo had the horribly uncomfortable sensation he was growing attached to Thorin and his family. Worryingly attached. Even affectionate.

Bilbo sighed and flipped slowly through one of his journals, trying to squash any such thoughts from his mind and instead focusing on his task. He was looking for the entries on Glorfindel's antics from a few years back. The obnoxious hell-raiser had visited, staying the entire summer, which had been pleasant and exasperating in turns. Thorin would find it entertaining, he was sure; he always seemed so taken in by the entries with Erestor and Glorfindel. There was no harm in directing him to more of his interests, was there?

Or leaving the notebook Bilbo had been using to write out his next romance in his _Enthralled_ series on Thorin's nightstand. It was Bilbo's favorite series, if he had to pick a favorite; one that focused on an ancient barbaric fantasy land with a cast of LGBT couples. (Unrealistic! according to Bilbo's publisher, who only sighed and muttered about the market when Bilbo pointed out everything he wrote was unrealistic anyway. The matter of the fact was, Bilbo was established enough to write anything he pleased, thank-you. It wasn't like he was short on money, with his other books' sales and the Shire rents.) In that particular romance—Bilbo had almost been finished with it at the time of his Gandalf-shaped accident—King Regin had abducted young Skafith from a quiet country inn, stealing him away to his mountain fortress. For wicked deeds and pleasures, naturally—it was a tawdry romance after all.

There was something about leaving items around the flat that Thorin would find entertaining that left Bilbo feeling pleased and not a little peculiar.

He was assuredly growing too attached.

There was a thump and the muted sounds of cursing downstairs, jolting Bilbo from his wandering thoughts. He quickly slipped a scrap of paper into the journal, marking out the start of Glorfindel's stay. (The fool had shown up on Bilbo's doorstep soaking wet and giving Bilbo doe eyes. It hadn't been raining, but Erestor's building had a pool, which explained the reek of chlorine. Despite reservations—Glorfindel was rowdy and intractably chaotic at the best of times—he'd let the poor man in, telling him not to drip on the carpets. Later, Erestor told Bilbo the ensuing three-month roller coaster served him right; he should have slammed the door and stopped his ears until Glorfindel slinked away. It wasn't like Glorfindel couldn't take care of himself. Bilbo wasn't inclined to disagree with the assessment, but that's what hindsight was for.)

Bilbo slid the journal under the current one Thorin was in the middle of on the little side-table beside the chair, and snuck out of the study, as if there was anyone there to catch him.

As if anyone could catch him at all. Being a "ghost" had perks. The perks, as it turned out, were the same as the cons. Nobody could see him. It was a win/lose scenario.

Over the railing, Bilbo caught sight of Thorin kicking a box of papers toward the entry hall, his arms full with another box that he eventually set on top of the first. Dís had brought Thorin boxes from storage over the last week, waving off Thorin's various complaints with an "I've been busy" and bustling past him without further ado.

Thorin had apparently decided now was as good a time as any to sort them.

Which wasn't strictly true. Thorin was having what Bilbo always called a restless day, flitting from one project to another without an iota of focus. It was why Bilbo was hiding upstairs.

Thorin had started with correspondence—something he did strictly through email, a concept that mystified Bilbo. The effort had quickly led to impatient sighs and mumbled complaints about the stupidity of the world at large. Thorin took misanthropy to new heights of grumpiness.

Not that Bilbo disagreed with him. He liked people on the whole, but that didn't mean there wasn't a prevalent level of foolishness in the world.

In any case, Thorin had quickly grown irritated with whatever correspondence he'd been facing, and snapped his laptop shut with an overloud _snick_. He'd gone out to the balcony and paced around for a few minutes like he had an itch he didn't know how to scratch before going up to the study. Not twenty minutes later he'd brought half a dozen blueprints down to the kitchen table.

When he'd started muttering at the tea, Bilbo realized Bilbo himself wasn't about to get anything constructive done with Thorin stalking around the place, and he'd gone to find something more productive to do with his (excessive) free time.

Sometime between then and now, Thorin had taken to sorting his boxes of paperwork. Bilbo pinched the bridge of his nose and willed himself to find some reserve of patience—something he was admittedly lacking himself today.

Bilbo had come to like the days Thorin stayed home to work, especially when Thorin genuinely _worked_ and didn't start moving Bilbo's things around, but today… Well, he was starting to wish Thorin had gone out. At least then Bilbo could think for five minutes without being interrupted by thumps and low curses.

"I'd try to help if that wouldn't cause more trouble than good," Bilbo called down, forcing a little more cheer into his voice than he felt, and certainly more than Thorin would care to hear. "But there's entertaining reading material for you later, when you're done grumbling at the world and ready to settle for awhile."

Thorin merely dragged his fingers through his hair, pulling strands back out of his face and staring mutinously down at the boxes before kicking one hard enough to send it flying another few feet down the hall.

"Very mature, very collected," Bilbo said drily.

Then Thorin stomped up the stairs, brushing through Bilbo on his way, and slammed into his office, the door swinging shut after him like an exclamation point. As if Thorin needed one.

Bilbo sighed and strolled down the stairs. He had zero inclination to be around a man who was inexplicably irate at every little thing. The living room was, of course, an apocalypse of storage containers, boxes lying haphazardly about, papers littering the coffee table, laptop abandoned on the sofa, and—

Oh. Well.

His mother's glory box was beside the couch, unopened but looking for all the world like Thorin planned to sort through it. It'd no doubt been abandoned like every other project had today. Bilbo stared at the wood, old and smooth with the occasional scuff and the handful of stickers Bilbo had pasted to the side when he'd been six and didn't know any better. He tried to recall what was in it. When was the last time he'd gone through his mother's beloved chest?

There was a shout from upstairs, unduly outraged, and the study door flew open again.

Thorin dashed down the stairs, something clutched in one hand, and beelined for the front door. Bilbo barely made it out as Thorin whizzed past: it was Bilbo's journal, the one he'd just set out, with all of Glorfindel's antics.

Bilbo sighed. Again. It had to be the thousandth sigh since Thorin first tripped over one of Dís' boxes on the way to the coffee and an apparently highly displeasing bowl of cereal that morning. 

Thorin was no doubt off to shout at Holman this very second, even though Bilbo couldn't think of a single conceivable way Holman could be the perpetrator of the moving journals, and doubted Thorin could either. It wasn't like Holman had been anywhere near their flat in days. Weeks, even.

All the mysterious happenings were Bilbo's doing, of course, not that Thorin would—or could—know that. Bilbo almost sighed again, biting it back and swallowing it away a second before it escaped.

Even though Thorin's tearing off after Holman was entirely Bilbo's fault, he considered keeping himself out of it. Holman was a grown man, and had a stubborn streak to match Thorin's poor temper. He could handle himself.

Holman would also probably bop Thorin on the nose if Thorin didn't calm down.

No doubt a punch would only aggravate Thorin further.

The last thing the Shire needed was a brawl in the hallway.

Reluctantly, Bilbo dragged himself out the door. His moment of hesitation had given Thorin a good lead; the irritating architect had already vanished from the hallway, no doubt having taken the stairs in his wrath. Bilbo followed.

As he reached the twelfth floor he could already hear Thorin pounding on Holman's door. Stepping through the stairwell door showed Thorin down the hall a little ways, glaring blackly at Holman's apartment number, Bilbo's journal clenched in one fist.

"You're taking your ill temper out on Holman for no good reason. Waking up on the wrong side of the bed is not the littlest bit a valid excuse for picking a fight," Bilbo informed him when he reached his side. "And you're exhausting me to boot."

Which wasn't strictly true. Bilbo had woken up tired, having nodded off in Thorin's squat grey armchair at some point, but Thorin's ill mood wasn't helping pick him up either.

Bilbo wasn't in the best frame of mind himself, he reluctantly admitted to himself. He had meant to make scones this morning before Thorin woke, but he'd fallen asleep last night before Thorin had ever gone to bed. He grimaced at the thought. He still hated falling asleep as a ghost. He still feared never waking up again, and his growing fatigue was not encouraging him in the matter.

The rest of the day had followed the morning like a train wreck, inevitable.

Thorin pounded on the door again. "Mr. Green!"

Bilbo eyed the door himself, looking between the smooth grain of the wood and its brass knocker to Thorin's stormy eyes and downturned mouth. Holman always answered promptly. Either he was avoiding Thorin, or he wasn't home.

"He's working," Bilbo said abruptly, and could have hit himself for not realizing faster. "Of course he's working. He's likely fixing Mrs. Bolger's sink. It clogs at least once a week, you know. I suspect she's had an eye for Hol for years now and breaks it on purpose. Or whatever the case, he'll be running around until suppertime. I needn't have bothered chasing you at all. Brawl, my foot."

Thorin cursed, but he stopped knocking and instead stood waiting impatiently at the door, as if he expected it to open.

"Like a grumpy cat," Bilbo observed, ignoring his own grumpiness in favor of Thorin's.

Thorin's fingers relaxed around the notebook, and he began fiddling with it instead, tracing its edges like he couldn't hold still, brushing his fingers over the slips of paper sticking out as impromptu bookmarks.

"Did you bother looking at it before storming around like a child in a tantrum?" Bilbo asked, not minding that Thorin wouldn't respond. Couldn't respond.

He leaned himself carefully against the wall, making sure he wouldn't sink through it before staring at Thorin fully. Thorin was in well-worn jeans today, and a t-shirt that by all rights should look ratty, old and thin as it was, some band logo Bilbo had never heard of worn almost invisible across the chest, but the black cotton hugged Thorin's arms and torso in just the right way to make it appealing instead of ragged. Some of Thorin's curious Nordic tattoos peaked out beneath the sleeves. He dragged his gaze back to Thorin's face with a stern mental kick to himself. He had no business admiring the view, no matter how attractive it was.

"I _am_ tired, dreadfully so. It feels like I've not slept in months, which is more or less true, I suppose. And _you_ are tearing around like a wild thing."

Thorin let out a slow breath, frowning that same mutinous frown at Holman's door, but at least he was no longer banging on it. "You'd think no one lives in the building, the way no one ever answers their goddamned door."

" _Working_ ," Bilbo repeated. He plucked at the hem of Thorin's shirt, unthinkingly slipping a bit of will into it that caused the material to shift and tug under his fingers. Thorin jerked toward where Bilbo's hand had pulled at his clothing, but then he froze, slowly turned his head just enough to glance out of the corner of his eye.

Bilbo realized his stupidity immediately, but what was done was done, and all he could do was take a steadying breath and wait. It wasn't like Thorin would see him, or realize he was there, even though Thorin looked like he was searching for something.

Thorin would simply write this off as another strange affair in the Shire building. A stray, impossible wind. Bilbo wasn't there.

"You need to relax awhile," Bilbo said, more to take his mind off things than anything. Thorin was still standing like a statue, frowning, but at least he didn't look as upset as he'd been five minutes ago. "And to be frank, so do I. Let's go rest a spell on the roof."

It was tempting to pluck at Thorin's shirt again, but all he really wanted to do was wander off somewhere to properly rest for the first time in months, to set aside his fears and his cleaning and the creeping loneliness. He wanted to stop worrying, about both Thorin and himself. "The garden," he said again, determinedly, and was already turning away when Thorin's head shot in Bilbo's direction.

Bilbo stilled, slowly turning back to look at him. Thorin was scanning the space right where Bilbo stood, but his eyes focused on nothing and his face was unreadable.

"Thorin?" he asked uncertainly.

Thorin turned away, and Bilbo flinched back from the sight, turning automatically to go up to his gardens, like he'd originally planned. He was too drained to deal with… with whatever had just happened, the idea of Thorin being completely unaware of him too much to bear just then.

"The garden," Bilbo said to himself, trying to will a bit of cheer into his thoughts. "My roses and lilies. I can check on the herbs too."

He was tired, and before Gandalf Bilbo would know for certain that his depression was in an upswing, but now… He didn't know whether he was emotionally tired or physically tired, and what it would mean to be one or the other. Both notions terrified him enough that he didn't want to contemplate either.

He didn't notice Thorin follow him back upstairs, but he did hear him move away as Thorin headed back into their flat and Bilbo didn't.

Fifteen minutes later, among all his plants and the little tile fountain his parents had built as their annual "family project" one summer, he felt a quiet peace sink slowly back into his bones. The peace brought a small, fledgling sense of certainty to his thoughts. He could do this, he could make it through. He had to.

Five minutes after that, Thorin stepped through the rooftop door, a journal tucked in one hand, and a bottle of wine in another.

Bilbo smiled.

~*~


End file.
